OUTLINES   OF 
VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 


CAMBRIDGE   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

FETTER  LANE,   E.G. 
C.  F.  CLAY,  MANAGER 


OFUmburfifj :   100,  PRINCES  STREET 
Berlin:  A.  ASHER  AND  CO. 
ILripjig:   F.  A.   BROCKHAUS 

£rto  gorft:    G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
»tmbae  anfc  Calcutta:  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LTI». 


All  rights  reserved 


OUTLINES    OF 
VICTORIAN  LITERATURE 


BY 

HUGH   WALKER,   LL.D. 

AND 

MRS   HUGH   WALKER 


Cambridge : 
at  the  University  Press 


6 


PRINTED   BY  JOHN   CLAY,    M.A. 
AT  THE   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


PREFACE 

VICTORIAN  literature  is  a  subject  far  too  extensive 
and  complex  to  be  dealt  with  adequately  in  a  book 
so  short  as  this.  The  aim  of  the  writers  has  been  merely 
to  furnish  an  introduction,  to  supply  an  outline  of  informa- 
tion and,  if  possible,  to  stimulate  interest  and  curiosity. 
Their  little  book  is  based  upon  the  larger  volume  by  one 
of  the  writers  entitled  The  Literature  of  the  Victorian  Era. 
The  materials  of  that  larger  volume  have  been  freely  used 
and  the  same  general  plan  has  been  followed.  But  the 
scale  has  been  greatly  reduced,  many  authors  who  are 
there  discussed  have  been  wholly  omitted,  and,  as  it  may 
be  presumed  that  a  number  of  the  readers  will  be  young, 
care  has  been  taken  to  write  as  simply  as  possible. 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  present  the  principal 
authors  of  the  period  not  merely  as  writers  but  as  men ; 
and  for  this  reason  it  will  be  found  that  the  biographical 
element  is  somewhat  more  copious  than  it  usually  is  in 
similar  books.  The  purely  critical  element  has,  of  course, 
been  correspondingly  curtailed.  The  writers  have  made 
their  choice  deliberately,  under  the  conviction  that  the 
surest  way  to  awaken  the  interest  of  beginners,  and 
especially  of  such  as  are  young  in  years,  is  to  touch 
the  note  of  personality. 

H.  W. 
J.  W. 


LAMPETER 
May  1913 


331368 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I.    CARLYLE  AND  THE  SYSTEMATIC  THINKERS 

SECTION  PAGE 

1.  Carlyle i 

2.  The  Theologians 11 

3.  The  Philosophers 17 

4.  Science 29 

CHAPTER  II.    POETRY 

1.  Some  Pre- Victorian  Poets 40 

2.  Tennyson 49 

3.  Browning 58 

4.  Minor  Singers 67 

5.  The  Turn  of  the  Century 73 

6.  The  Later  Pre-Raphaelites 85 

7.  The  Celtic  Poets 92 

8.  The  remaining  Poets 94 

CHAPTER  III.    NOVELS  AND  NOVELISTS 

1.  The  Successors  of  Scott 109 

2.  Dickens 119 

3.  Thackeray 122 

4.  Women  Novelists 126 

5.  Contemporaries  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray.        .  135 

6.  George  Meredith 141 

7.  Other  Story-Tellers 143 

8.  R.  L.  Stevenson 147 

9.  Stories  for  Children 150 


viii  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  IV.    THE  HISTORIANS 

SECTION  PAGE 

1.  The  Revolution  in  the  Writing  of  History  .        .       159 

2.  Students  of  the  Origins .         .        .        .  .161 

3.  Ancient  History 162 

4.  Hallam  and  Macaulay 166 

5.  Froude 169 

6.  The  Oxford  Group 172 

7.  The  Philosophical  Historians         .        .        .        .178 

8.  Military  History 183 


CHAPTER  V.    BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM 

1.  The  Biographers 188 

2.  The  Edinburgh  Critics 191 

3.  Leigh  Hunt  and  De  Quincey        .        .        .        .194 

4.  Matthew  Arnold 195 

5.  Brown,  Stephen  and  Henley          ....  199 

6.  The  Criticism  of  Art 200 


CHAPTER  VI.    THE  FRAGMENTS  THAT  REMAIN 

1.  Landor  and  Minor  Writers 211 

2.  Travel  and  Geography 215 

3.  Oscar  Wilde 217 

INDEX  220 


CHAPTER   I 

CARLYLE   AND    THE    SYSTEMATIC    THINKERS 

§  I.     Carlyle 

PEOPLE  who  keep  pigeons  have  discovered  that  from 
time  to  time  they  must  bring  eggs  from  a  neighbouring 
dovecot  if  they  wish  to  keep  up  the  excellence  of  their 
birds.  If  pigeon  fanciers  are  too  exclusive,  and  refrain 
from  all  exchange  of  eggs,  their  stock  will  weaken  and 
ultimately  die  out.  A  like  fate,  De  Quincey  thinks,  awaits 
the  literature  of  any  country  which  is  preserved  from  all 
foreign  intercourse.  He  says  that  every  literature,  unless 
it  be  crossed  by  some  other  of  a  different  breed,  tends  to 
superannuation;  and  he  points  to  the  French  as  an  example 
of  one  which  has  suffered,  so  as  to  be,  in  his  opinion,  on 
the  point  of  extinction,  because  it  has  rejected  all  alliance 
with  exotic  literature.  Writing  nearly  a  century  ago,  in 
1821,  he  asks  what,  with  this  example  before  our  eyes, 
the  English  should  do,  and  answers,  "  Evidently  we  should 
cultivate  an  intercourse  with  that  literature  of  Europe  which 
has  most  of  a  juvenile  constitution."  "  That,"  he  adds,  "  is 
the  German  literature."  What  De  Quincey  recommended  **_ 
has  been  done,  and  the  Victorian  era  may  be  described  as  ./ 
the  era  of  German  Influence. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Coleridge  were  among  the  first 
great  men  to  find  their  way  into  German  literature;  but 

w.  i 


2  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

its  best  interpreter  .1^5  been  Thomas  Carlyle  (179 5 — 1881); 
and  for  this  reason,  not  less  than  because  of  his  date  and 
his  intrinsic  importance,  his  name  is  naturally  the  first  to 
be  introduced  into  a  study  of  Victorian  Literature.  No  one 
else  touches  it  at  so  many  points ;  no  one  else  combines 
in  the  same  degree  the  vital  principles  of  poetry  and  prose; 
no  one  else  did  so  much  to  make  the  literature  of  his  age 
what  it  became. 

In  his  relation  to  Germany  Carlyle'^  importance  is  very 
great.  He  laboured  to  understand  her  philosophy  and  to 
do  justice  to  her  spirit.  The  greatest  of  German  poets, 
Goethe,  was  his  hero,  and  the  idealism  which  the  German 
philosophers  preached  became,  we  might  almost  say,  his 
religion.  Carlyle  learnt  from  German  thinkers  to  under- 
stand himself  and  to  find  expression  for  the  new  thoughts 
which  he  brought  into  English  literature,  "  Germanism " 
is  the  master  key  to  much  of  the  English  literature  of  the 
nineteenth  century ;  and  it  was  Carlyle  who  naturalised 
German  thought  in  England. 

Carlyle  was  born  in  the  little  Scottish  border  village 
of  Ecclefechan.  His  father  was  a  stonemason  and  his 
mother  a  peasant  woman  who,  late  in  life,  taught  herself 
to  write  in  order  that  she  might  answer  the  letters  of  her 
famous  son.  There  was  no  money  to  spare  in  this  workman's 
cottage,  but  thrifty  habits  and  simple  food  left  a  narrow 
margin  of  the  weekly  earnings  for  the  education  of  the 
children.  The  deep  religious  convictions  of  the  parents 
prompted  them  to  make  many  sacrifices  so  that  they  might 
prepare  one  son  for  the  ministry.  With  this  end  in  view 
Thomas  Carlyle  attended  the  academy  at  Annan,  and 
walked  six  miles  each  morning  to  school  and  six  miles 
back  again  at  night. 

At  the  Annan  Academy  the  famous  preacher  Edward 
Irving  had  been  a  pupil,  but  it  was  not  till  Carlyle  had 
left  Annan  that  the  two  youths  met.  They  were  each 


CARLYLE  3 

destined  subsequently  to  exercise  much  influence  on  the 
other's  life.  After  his  university  career  Irving  taught  at 
Haddington  and  later  at  Kirkcaldy.  Meanwhile  Carlyle 
had  entered  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  to  which  he 
refers  in  Sartor  Resartus  as  "  the  worst  of  all  hitherto 
discovered  universities."  The  true  university  of  these 
days,  he  declared,  was  a  collection  of  books ;  and  so  it 
certainly  was  in  his  case.  He  quickly  discovered  that  he 
was  suited  neither  to  the  life  of  a  student  in  a  theological 
college,  nor  to  the  life  of  a  parish  minister  for  which  it 
was  the  preparation.  There  remained  only  the  work  of 
teaching  open  to  him ;  so  he  followed  Edward  Irving  to 
Kirkcaldy  and  taught  another  school  there.  The  acquaint- 
ance of  the  two  Annan  men  rapidly  developed  into  a  close 
intimacy;  and  when,  one  vacation,  Irving  took  his  friend 
with  him  to  visit  the  home  of  Dr  Welsh  of  Haddington, 
Carlyle  met  Dr  Welsh's  only  child,  Jane,  his  future  wife. 
She  had  previously  been  taught  by  Irving,  and  between 
pupil  and  master  there  was  a  warm  affection,  which  might 
have  ripened  into  love  had  Carlyle  not  been  introduced. 
Jane  Welsh  was  at  this  time  very  attractive  and  gifted 
with  wit  that  almost  equalled  Carlyle's  own  in  sharpness 
and  cleverness.  In  1826  they  were  married,  and  began 
life  in  a  small  home  at  Comely  Bank  near  Edinburgh. 
Froude  has  told  the  story  of  their  life  together,  and  has 
left  the  world  with  the  impression  that  they  were  both 
unhappy.  The  word  happiness  requires  interpretation.  If 
it  means  leading  from  day  to  day  a  contented  existence 
of  unruffled  calm,  then  the  Carlyles  were  not  happy.  But 
the  fault  lay  in  their  temperaments,  not  in  their  affection. 
They  were  both  persons  of  genius,  and  had  in  an  unusual 
degree  the  gift  of  picturesque  and  humorous  language. 
They  enjoyed  using  their  powers  on  each  other,  and  the 
domestic  explosions  meant  little  more  to  them  than 
capering  and  rearing  mean  to  a  high-spirited  horse.  It 


4  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

is  true  they  sometimes  damaged  themselves,  just  as  the 
horse  does  too;  but,  like  him  also,  they  were  ready  again 
to  take  the  bit  between  their  teeth  at  the  next  opportunity. 
Froude,  who  was  ill-endowed  with  a  sense  of  humour,  took 
everything  they  said  seriously,  and  marked  down  tragedy 
when  the  actors  were  playing  burlesque. 

Except  for  these  tea-cup  storms  the  life  of  Carlyle  was 
uneventful.  Its  chief  milestones  are  the  beginning  and 
ending  of  his  books.  It  was  the  books  which  settled  for 
him  his  place  of  residence.  Two  years  after  his  marriage, 
to  secure  himself  the  leisure  and  the  freedom  from  inter- 
ruption which  were  necessary  for  writing,  he  moved  from 
Edinburgh  to  Craigenputtock,  a  lonely  farm-house  on  the 
Galloway  hills,  the  property  of  his  wife.  There  Carlyle 
lived  for  six  years,  which  proved  to  be  the  intellectual  seed 
/  y^time  of  his  life.  His  Life  of  Schiller  and  the  translation 
\  (I  of  Goethe's  Wilhelm  Meisters  Apprenticeship  were  written 
before  his  removal  thither.  It  was  during  his  residence 
at  Craigenputtock  that  Goethe  and  he  exchanged  letters 
and  gifts,  and  that  Emerson  crossed  the  Atlantic  and 
came  to  pay  him  homage.  Sartor  Resartus,  or  "  the 
^tailor  patched,"  was  the  chief  work  of  this  period  ;  but 
he  wrote  besides  essays  on  Burns,  Voltaire,  Diderot, 
Johnson  and  Novalis,  the  second  essay  on  Richter,  The 
Diamond  Necklace  and  Signs  of  the  Times. 

Nichol  in  his  life  of  Carlyle  says  that  his  work  "  marks 
the  beginning  of  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  British  criti- 
cism."    There  is  exaggeration  in  this  judgment,  but  there 
is  also  some  truth.     Carlyle  has  taught  us  that  there  can 
j   be  no  justice  in  criticism  which  is  not  based  on  sympathy 
'    with  the  work  reviewed.     "No  man,"  he  says,  "can  pro- 
nounce dogmatically,  with  even  a  chance  of  being  right, 
on  the  faults  of  a  poem,  till  he  has  seen  its  very  best  and 
highest  beauty;... the  beauty  of  the  poem  as  a  whole  in  the 
strict  sense;  the  clear  view  of  it  as  an  indivisible  unity." 


CARLYLE  5 

And  this  could  only  be  done  by  viewing  it  from  the  author's 
standpoint.  It  was  in  this  spirit  that  Carlyle  prepared 
himself  for  his  task  of  literary  critic,  biographer,  or  historian. 
It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  Carlyle  did  his  work  well 
exactly  in  proportion  to  his  fidelity  in  following  the  laws 
which  he  had  himself  laid  down.  A  poem  and  the  life  of 
a  great  man  are,  in  Carlyle's  view,  closely  related  to  each 
other.  4<  There  is  no  heroic  poem,"  he  says,  "  in  the  world 
but  is  at  bottom  a  biography,  the  life  of  a  man";  and 
conversely  "there  is  no  life  of  a  man,  faithfully  recorded, 
but  is  a  heroic  poem  of  its  sort,  rhymed  or  unrhymed."  In 
all  Carlyle's  works  there  is  no  idea  so  deep  rooted,  or  so  / 
variously  expressed,  as  that  of  the  supreme  importance  ^ 
of  the  great  man.  To  discover  him  and  then  to  do  him 
and  his  works  justice,  Carlyle  regards  as  the  first  duty  of 
every  writer  of  criticism  and  history.  This  is  the  essence 
of  his  book  on  Heroes  andjfero-  Worship,  and  it  is  constantly 
repeated  in  Past  and  Present  and  in  Latter- Day  Pamphlets. 
His  Croimvell  zndTFrederick  the  Great  are  furtheTexamples 
of  the  same  doctrine,  and  even  his  French  Revolution  itself 
is  made,  not  always  easily,  to  revolve  round  individuals, 
and  above  all  round  the  person  of  Mirabeau.  In  Sartor  v 
Resartus  Carlyle  writes  that  "  Great  men  are  the  inspired 
Texts  of  that  divine  Book  of  Revelations,  whereof  a  chapter 
is  completed  from  epoch  to  epoch,  and  by  some  named 
History." 

The  last-named  book  was  a  puzzle  to  Carlyle's  own 
critics.  He  went  up  to  London  in  1831  to  arrange  for  its 
publication.  The  MS  was  offered  to  John  Murray,  the 
best-known  publisher  of  his  time.  He  accepted  Sartor, 
and  then  changed  his  mind.  The  book  finally  started  its 
career  in  the  pages  of  Fraser's  Magazine,  and  justified  the 
refusal  of  Murray  by  proving  to  be  "  beyond  measure  un- 
popular" with  the  readers  of  that  journal.  Taine,  the  French 
critic,  writes  of  its  author  in  much  the  same  terms  as  the 


6  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

readers  of  Fraser  spoke  of  his  book.  Taine  calls  Carlyle 
"  a  strange  animal,  a  relic  of  a  lost  family,  a  sort  of  Mastodon, 
who  has  strayed  in  a  world  not  made  for  him." 

It  is  small  wonder  that  this  "strange  animal,"  author 
of  a  book  still  stranger,  failed  to  earn  a  living  wage.  In 
1834,  when  the  Carlyles  removed  to  Cheyne  Row,  Chelsea, 
the  available  money  with  which  they  had  to  face  their  new 
life  was  £200.  In  the  following  year  Carlyle  wrote,  "  it  is 
now  some  three-and-twenty  months  since  I  have  earned 
one  penny  by  the  craft  of  literature."  This  was  the  position 
at  thirty-nine  of  the  greatest  literary  genius  of  the  age, 
while  the  commonplace  Martin  Tupper  was  able,  a  decade 
later,  to  make  from  £500  to  £800  a  year  by  his  stale 
Proverbial  Philosophy.  The  outlook  for  Carlyle  was  dark 
and  gloomy.  He  had  no  prospect  of  earning  except  by  his 
writings,  and  his  latest  and  greatest  work  was  threatening 
to  bring  ruin  upon  the  magazine  which  had  given  it  a 
home.  The  knowledge  that  Sartor  Resartus  had  appeared 
in  book  form  in  America  before  it  came  out  thus  in  England 
inclined  its  author  to  consider  the  idea  of  trying  his  fortunes 
there.  Emerson  had  assured  him  that  he  could  by  lecturing 
make  an  income  sufficient  for  his  needs.  He  would  probably 
have  emigrated.  But  Harriet  Martineau  and  several  others 
determined  to  make  an  effort  to  keep  him  in  England ;  and 
the  outcome  was  a  series  of  six  lectures  on  German  litera- 
ture, delivered  in  1837.  The  work  was  odious  to  Carlyle, 
but  it  was  completely  successful,  and  the  £135  it  brought 
in  cleared  away  the  money  difficulties  that  had  encompassed 
him.  In  each  of  the  three  following  years  he  gave  a  fresh 
set  of  lectures,  the  last  being  the  famous  series  on  heroes. 

Carlyle  neither  spoke  nor  wrote  with  ease.  When  he 
arrived  to  settle  in  London  his  mind  was  full  of  the  history 
he  proposed  to  write  of  The  French  Revolution.  Yet  in 
his  journal  he  records  that  "  after  two  weeks  of  blotching 
and  bloring"  he  has  managed  to  produce — "two  clean 


CARLYLE  7 

pages"  of  the  book.  Nevertheless,  in  this  work  we  find 
some  of  the  best  examples  of  the  vivid  picturesqueness  of/ 
Carlyle's  descriptions.  He  accurately  described  his  method 
of  work  when  he  declared  his  intention  "to  splash  down 
what  he  knew  in  large  masses  of  colour,  that  it  may  look 
like  a  smoke-and-flame  conflagration  in  the  distance." 
When  the  last  sentence  of  The  French  Revolution  was 
written  Carlyle  went  out  for  a  walk,  saying  to  his  wife, 
"  I  know  not  whether  this  book  is  worth  anything,  nor 
what  the  world  will  do  with  it,  or  misdo,  or  entirely  forbear 
to  do,  as  is  likeliest;  but  this  I  could  tell  the  world:  You 
have  not  had  for  a  hundred  years  any  book  that  comes 
more  direct  and  flamingly  from  the  heart  of  a  living  man." 
The  French  Revolution  received  recognition  at  once,  and 
its  author  took  his  place  henceforth  as  one  of  the  fore- 
most English  men  of  letters.  It  was  in  connexion  with 
this  book  that  an  accident  occurred  which  gave  evidence 
of  Carlyle's  amazing  courage  and  self-control  in  great 
trials.  The  MS  of  the  first  volume  was  lent  to  his  friend 
John  Stuart  Mill  to  read.  While  in  his  custody  the  precious 
pages  were  used  by  a  careless  housemaid  as  fire-lighters; 
yet  when  told  of  the  catastrophe  Carlyle  made  no  reproaches, 
but  set  himself  to  re-write  it,  and  finished  it  just  a  year 
after  he  began  the  composition  of  the  version  which  had 
been  destroyed. 

There  was  no  lack  of  moral  force  in  Carlyle,  and  no 
man  ever  attracted  him  unless  he  was  strong.  His  two 
heroes,  Cromwell  and  Frederick,  seem  to  stand  out  in 
opposition  to  each  other;  but  in  his  mind  they  represented 
the  same  ideal — the  moving  power  of  great  men,  and  their 
certain  triumph.  Sir  Henry  Taylor  in  his  autobiography 
remarks  on  the  strangeness  of  what  he  believes  to  be 
the  fact  that  such  a  man  as  Carlyle  should  have  chosen 
success  as  the  object  of  his  idolatry,  and  tells  an  amusing 
story  in  illustration.  "  Long  before  his  life  of  Cromwell 


8  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

came  out,  I  heard  him  insisting  in  conversation  on  the  fact 
that  Cromwell  had  been  invariably  successful ;  and  having 
with  much  satisfaction  traced  the  long  line  of  his  successes 
to  the  end,  he  added,  '  it  is  true  they  got  him  out  of  his 
grave  at  the  Restoration  and  they  stuck  his  head  up  over 
the  gate  at  Tyburn,  but  not  till  he  had  quite  done  with  it.' " 
This  story  is  characteristic  of  Carlyle,  but  Taylor  has  mis- 
understood it.  Mere  success  was  contemptible  to  the 
author  of  the  essay  on  Burns;  what  he  set  store  upon  was 
that  power  of  which  success  was  usually  the  index. 

In  his  Cromwell  and  Frederick  tlie  Great  Carlyle  was 
at  his  best.  The  first  was  suggested  to  him  by  Mill,  who 
asked  him  for  an  article  upon  the  Protector  for  The  London 
and  Westminster  Review.  Carlyle  agreed  to  do  it ;  but  in 
the  interval  Mill  went  abroad  and  his  sub-editor  informed 
Carlyle  that  he  "  meant  to  do  Cromwell  himself."  In  rage 
Carlyle  determined  to  lengthen  the  article  into  a  book.  It 
was  the  research  work  necessary  for  his  task  that  roused 
him  to  set  on  foot  the  London  Library.  He  intended 
to  write  a  life  of  Cromwell  and  a  history  of  the  Common- 
wealth, but  what  he  ultimately  produced  was  an  inspired 
piece  of  editorial  work  on  Cromwell's  letters  and  speeches 
combined  with  a  magnificent  picture  of  the  Captain  of  the 
Ironsides,  and  vivid  descriptions  of  the  battle  of  Dunbar 
and  other  scenes  in  which  he  is  the  leading  figure. 

A  couple  of  years  before  Cromwell  was  published 
Carlyle  achieved  what,  to  him,  was  a  miracle  :  he  wrote 
iPast  and  Present  in  seven  weeks  and  uttered  not  a  single 
groan  during  its  production.  It,  and  its  predecessor, 
Chartism^  and  its  successor,  Latter- Day  Pamphlets ',  form 
a  trio  of  books  inspired  by  the  social  condition  of  England 
in  his  time.  They  are  filled  with  a  radical's  hatred  of  class 
tyranny,  yet  at  the  same  time  they  show  the  profoundest 
respect  for  the  principle  of  aristocracy. 

The  Life  of  Sterling,  like  Past  and  Present,  was  written 


CARLYLE  9 

quickly  and  easily.  It  is  a  beautiful  life  of  a  beautiful 
character,  and  stands  out  in  its  language  in  marked  contrast 
to  the  rugged  though  eloquent  style  of  Carlyle's  other  com- 
positions. After  Sterling  came  The  History  of  Frederick  II  */ 
of  Prussia,  called  Frederick  the  Great  (1858—1865),  the  last 
important  work  of  Carlyle.  It  was  by  far  the  longest  of 
his  books,  and  the  most  difficult  to  write.  After  its  com- 
pletion he  wrote :  "  If  they  were  to  offer  me  all  Prussia, 
all  the  solar  system,  I  would  not  write  Frederick  again." 
He  set  about  his  task  with  characteristic  thoroughness, 
visiting  Germany  to  gather  materials  and  to  study  the 
scenes  of  Frederick's  battles.  Without  this  careful  attention 
to  detail  many  of  his  pictures  would  have  been  wanting  in 
vividness  and  in  accuracy.  Thanks  to  it,  his  work  remained, 
in  the  opinion  of  Germans,  the  best  general  history  of 
Frederick  and  the  most  reliable  picture  of  his  campaigns 
until  the  eighties,  when  fuller  knowledge  was  obtained  by 
the  opening  of  the  German  archives,  and  the  publication 
of  the  correspondence  of  Frederick. 

Carlyle's  profound  belief  in  strength,  as  symbolised  for 
him  by  men  like  Cromwell  and  Frederick,  has  alienated 
many.  They  do  not  see  that  the  terms  "might"  and  "right," 
in  his  use  of  them,  are  interchangeable.  If  we  give  them 
centuries  to  try  it  in,  Carlyle  holds  that  we  may  say 
indifferently  "  might  is  right "  or  "  right  is  might."  The 
universe  is  just,  and,  in  the  long  run,  right  is  bound  to 
triumph.  But  the  triumph  must  be  won  by  effort.  Carlyle 
kept  always  before  his  eyes  the  need  of  fighting  for  justice >( 
and  truth.  These  were  the  chief  articles  of  his  faith. 
No  one  ever  preached  his  creed  more  persistently;  and, 
what  is  more  difficult,  no  one  ever  lived  more  consistently 
in  accordance  with  his  creed.  Neither  by  word,  nor  by 
action,  nor  by  refraining  from  action,  would  he  palter  with 
what  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  truth.  For  this  lesson  alone, 
if  for  nothing  else,  the  world  would  have  cause  to  rank  him 


io  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

among  its  great  men.  But  in  spite  of  his  almost  fanatical 
worship  of  truth,  Carlyle's  fantastic  humour  and  his  com- 
mand of  language  occasionally,  as  the  phrase  goes,  made 
his  tongue  or  his  pen  run  away  with  him  and  caused  him 
to  make  the  most  glaring  misrepresentations  and  exag- 
gerations. Cardinal  Newman  had  not,  in  his  estimation, 
"  the  intellect  of  a  moderate-sized  rabbit " ;  John  Stuart  Mill, 
the  philosopher,  was  "  a  man  of  aridities  and  negations  " ; 
and  Scott  was  "the  restaurateur  of  Europe."  So  too  the 
great  civil  war  between  North  and  South  in  America,  which 
swept  off  the  population  of  a  small  state,  was  to  Carlyle 
"  a  smoky  chimney  which  had  taken  fire."  Yet  this  power 
of  phrase-making  is  among  the  greatest  of  literary  gifts, 
and  made  him,  with  his  humour,  the  most  brilliant  talker 
of  his  day.  His  most  distinguished  contemporaries 
listened  enthralled  by  his  eloquence  and  by  his  originality. 
The  servants  who  waited  at  tables  where  he  dined  ran 
from  the  room  choking  down  their  laughter  at  his  bursts 
of  humour.  His  phrases  could  cut  like  a  surgeon's  knife, 
or  dazzle  like  a  reflected  sunbeam,  or  bring  before  the 
eye  in  a  dozen  words  a  portrait  never  to  be  forgotten. 
Thus  Tennyson  is  "  a  fine,  large- featured,  dim-eyed,  bronze- 
coloured,  shaggy-headed  man, ...  dusty,  smoky,  free  and 
easy,"  and  Mazzini,  the  famous  Italian  refugee  and  patriot, 
"a  small,  square-headed,  bright-eyed,  swift,  yet  still  Ligurian 
figure ;  beautiful  and  merciful  and  fierce." 

Carlyle  lived  a  long  life  and  his  recognition  came  in 
good  time.  Perhaps  the  hour  of  highest  triumph  to  him 
was  his  election  to  the  Lord  Rectorship  of  his  old  univer- 
sity of  Edinburgh.  This  great  hour  held  also  the  moment 
of  his  deepest  agony,  for  as  he  turned  away  from  the 
speeches  and  pageants  of  the  Edinburgh  ceremony  he 
learnt  that  his  wife  had  been  found  dead  in  her  carriage 
driving  home  to  Chelsea  from  the  Park.  Her  death  was 
due  to  a  paroxysm  of  horror  at  seeing  her  little  dog,  as 


THE   THEOLOGIANS  u 

she  supposed,  crushed  under  a  passing  wheel.  The  animal 
escaped  unhurt,  but  the  human  heart  ceased  to  beat.  With 
her  life  Carlyle's  own  practically  ended.  He  survived  her 
for  many  years,  but  he  was  for  the  most  part  condemned  to 
idleness.  His  hand  trembled  so  that  he  could  not  write, 
and  he  found  it  impossible  to  dictate  his  thoughts  to 
another.  He  died,  as  he  had  long  lived,  in  Cheyne  Row, 
but  he  was  buried  amongst  his  kinsfolk  in  the  kirkyard  of 
Ecclefechan,  just  behind  the  cottage  in  which  he  was  born. 

§  2.     The  Theologians 

It  may  seem  at  first  sight  superfluous  to  devote  a  section 
in  a  small  history  of  literature  to  the  work  of  theologians. 
But  in  the  Victorian  era  the  religious  movements  had  an 
indirect  influence  upon  men  of  letters  quite  out  of  proportion 
to  the  literary  value  of  the  work  their  exponents  produced. 
In  Scotland  the  Disruption  profoundly  influenced  the  whole 
life  of  the  nation,  while  in  England  the  theologians  of  the 
Oxford  Movement  gave  a  different  colour  to  the  minds  of 
certain  poets  and  painters,  from  whom  we  have  had  verses 
and  paintings  which  would  have  been  very  different  but 
for  this  theological  influence. 

In  England  the  Catholic  reaction  was  full  of  literary 
significance,  for  it  was  really  one  of  the  forms  in  which  the 
great  romance  movement  expressed  itself.  Scott  in  his 
novels  had  turned  men's  minds  back  to  the  middle  ages 
and  had  awakened  interest  in  all  their  mystery  and  mysti- 
cism. Cardinal  Newman  says  that  the  Waverley  romances 
created  in  him  a  Catholic  frame  of  mind,  and  the  staunch 
Protestant  George  Borrow  confirms  the  view  of  the  Catholic 
Newman,  by  denouncing  Scott  for  reviving  men's  interest 
in  Jacobitism  and  Popery. 

There  was,  then,  religious  unrest  and  dissatisfaction 
North  and  South  of  the  Tweed.  In  Scotland  a  large 


12  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

section  of  the  Presbyterian  body  regarded  the  existing 
system  of  patronage  as  incompatible  with  the  highest 
spiritual  life;  and  ultimately  these  high-minded  enthusiasts 
decided  to  leave  their  national  church  rather  than  submit 
longer  to  this  wrong.  In  1843,  therefore,  about  450  minis- 
ters with  their  followers  marched  into  the  wilderness  with 
a  Bible  in  one  hand  and  a  Confession  of  Faith  in  the  other. 
The  leader  of  this  bold  movement  was  Thomas  Chalmers 
(1780 — 1847),  and  upon  him  fell  the  responsibility  of  find- 
ing means  of  support  for  the  men  who  had  left  their  manses 
and  given  up  their  endowments  to  follow  him.  To  meet 
their  needs  Chalmers  created  the  famous  Sustentation  Fund 
of  the  Free  Kirk — that  is,  his  was  the  organising  brain  behind 
it.  His  plan  was  the  very  genius  of  simplicity.  By  a  simple 
arithmetical  calculation  he  showed  that  a  contribution  of 
one  penny  a  week  from  each  member  of  the  seceding  Kirk 
would  provide  a  stipend  of  £150  a  year  for  each  minister. 
The  iron  was  hot  and  he  struck.  From  the  first  the  people 
recognised  that  if  they  would  have  spiritual  independence 
they  must  pay  for  it.  And  they  paid.  Chalmers  had  already 
in  his  parish  of  St  John's,  Glasgow,  given  proof  of  his 
unusual  gifts  of  statesmanship  in  his  administration  of 
poor  relief.  He  lived  there  during  a  period  of  industrial 
revolution,  when  men  were  thrown  out  of  work  by  the 
introduction  of  machinery.  The  recent  wars  in  Europe 
had  raised  the  price  of  food,  and  when  Chalmers  entered 
his  parish  he  found  that  the  annual  money  devoted  to  the 
relief  of  the  poor  was  £1400.  In  three  years  he  reduced 
this  to  ^280,  and  at  the  same  time  raised  the  poor  by  his 
administration  and  teaching  to  a  condition  of  greater 
comfort. 

The  advent  of  the  Free  Kirk  of  Scotland  and  the 
history  of  poor  relief  in  Glasgow  are  not  literature,  yet 
it  has  seemed  worth  while  to  touch  briefly  upon  the  work 
of  Chalmers  because  his  social  activity  had  a  far-reaching 


THE   THEOLOGIANS  13 

though  indirect  influence  upon  the  intelligence  of  his  gene- 
ration. He  deserves  to  be  remembered  for  the  things  he  did, 
rather  than  for  the  books  he  wrote,  though  his  contem- 
porary fame  as  an  author  was  so  great  that  his  Discourses 
on  the  Christian  Revelation^  which  appeared  at  the  same 
time  as  Old  Mortality  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  sold  as  rapidly 
as  the  popular  novel.  In  the  history  of  Chalmers,  also, 
we  are  again  brought  into  touch  with  Carlyle,  for  his  early 
friend  Edward  Irving  (1792 — 1834)  was  Chalmers's  assis- 
tant in  Glasgow.  The  natural  gifts  of  Irving  were  great,  but 
there  was  probably  a  want  of  balance  in  his  mind  ;  for  in 
spite  of  the  high  hopes  of  men  such  as  Carlyle,  Chalmers 
and  the  historian  Thirlwall,  Irving  squandered  his  powers 
in  spiritual  excesses,  and  believed  that  he  and  his  people 
would  see  the  end  of  the  world  and  the  inauguration  of 
Christ  in  an  earthly  kingdom.  Carlyle  listened  grimly  to 
the  famous  "  tongues "  in  Irving's  church,  and  described 
them  as  a  "  shrieky  hysterical  lall-lall-lall " ;  while  Mrs 
Carlyle  sardonically  remarked  that  had  she  married  Irving 
they  would  not  have  been  heard. 

South  of  the  Tweed  men  did  not  concern  themselves 
with  patronage,  but  with  the  broad  doctrines  taught  in  the 
pulpits  and  the  indifferent  administration  of  the  services 
and  sacraments  of  the  Church  of  England.  German  phi- 
losophy had  found  its  way  among  the  theologians  and 
disturbed  their  minds,  and  the  discoveries  of  scientific 
thinkers  had  troubled  the  still  waters  of  orthodoxy.  Men 
zealous  for  the  safety  of  their  beliefs  dared  not  look 
forward  ;  it  seemed  to  them  wiser  to  turn  backward  and 
seek  shelter  under  the  authority  of  a  church  which  claims 
to  be  infallible.  To  some  of  them  it  did  not  appear  im- 
possible to  put  the  ecclesiastical  clock  back  three  hundred 
years.  Separate  from,  but  side  by  side  with,  these  enthu- 
siasts were  another  group  of  churchmen  who  joined  forces 
with  them  only  because  the  renewal  of  mediaeval  ritual 


14  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

pleased  their  sense  of  decorum  and  beauty,  and  remedied 
the  irreverence  and  carelessness  which  had  crept  into  the 
administration  of  the  services.  Behind  both  parties  was 
the  impelling  force  of  the  romance  writers,  driving  men  back 
from  materialism  into  the  age  of  mystery  and  miracle. 

Among  such  men  was  John  Henry  Newman  (1801 — 
1890),  who  was  educated  at  Trinity  College,  Oxford,  and 
became  Fellow  of  Oriel  in  1822.  He  describes  himself  as 
superstitious  in  his  youth,  and  as  finding  comfort  in  child- 
hood in  crossing  himself  after  the  fashion  of  Roman 
Catholics  when  he  went  into  the  dark.  He  ultimately 
joined  that  body  to  which  apparently  his  earliest  feelings 
had  drawn  him ;  but  it  was  ten  years  before  he  found 
where  his  mind  was  leading  him.  His  first  publication 
was  Lives  of  the  English  Saints.  In  this  work  he  was 
helped  by  his  followers.  Next  came  a  series  of  papers 
entitled  Tracts  for  the  Times.  Newman  wrote  twenty-nine 
of  these,  and  the  most  Romish  of  all,  Tract  XC,  was  from 
his  pen.  The  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,  and  two 
very  disappointing  novels,  Loss  and  Gain,  and  Callista, 
came  after  he  had  left  the  Church  of  England  for  that 
of  Rome.  The  stories  were  written  to  attract  men  to 
follow  him  thither.  Newman  also  wrote  poetry,  his  most 
notable  pieces  being  the  exquisite  Dream  of  Gerontius,  and 
the  beautiful  hymn  Lead,  kindly  Light.  The  Apologia  pro 
Vita  Sua,  his  greatest  contribution  to  literature,  was  written 
from  the  Oratory,  Birmingham,  where  he  finished  his  life. 
It  is  the  record  of  the  spiritual  experiences  which  led  him 
to  Rome.  It  reveals  the  anxious  fears  and  eager  hopes 
with  which  he  was  consumed  before  he  left  the  Church  of 
England. 

Newman  was  the  literary  genius  of  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment, as  this  religious  revival  is  called.  Froude  said  he  was 
the  indicating  number,  all  the  rest  being  but  as  ciphers 
in  comparison.  Oxford  was  the  home  not  only  of  this 


THE   THEOLOGIANS  15 

movement,  but  also  of  the  Noetics,  the  school  of  theo- 
logians who  sought  to  harmonise  their  religious  beliefs 
with  their  reasoning  faculties.  Fear  and  distrust  of  this 
school  profoundly  influenced  Newman  and  his  friends,  and 
Tract  XC  was  more  than  this  Protestant  section  of  the  com- 
munity, for  its  part,  could  endure.  There  was  a  tremendous 
commotion,  and  Newman  was  driven  from  his  fellowship  at 
Oriel  College  and  from  his  position  as  tutor.  He  retired  to 
Littlemore,  near  by,  and  gathered  round  him  such  of  the 
Tractarians  as  were  disposed  to  go  as  far  as  he  then  did  ; 
for  he  still  hesitated  before  taking  the  final  step  and 
seceding  from  the  Anglican  Communion. 

No  one  has  ever  surpassed  Newman  in  the  delicate  charm 
of  his  English.  Refinement,  severity,  strength,  sweetness 
— all  these  are  attributes  of  his  style,  as  well  as  of  his 
character.  There  was  no  one  in  the  movement  comparable 
to  him,  but  there  are  a  few  minor  writers  who  deserve  to  be 
mentioned.  Newman  says  that  the  Oxford  revival  was 
started  in  1833,  by  a  sermon  on  National  Apostasy  preached 
by  his  friend  John  Keble  (1792 — 1866)  at  the  opening  of 
the  Oxford  assizes.  But  though  the  conflagration  was  great 
it  does  not  follow  that  there  was  greatness  in  the  spark 
which  started  it.  The  real  work  was  done  by  Newman ; 
and  Keble's  place  in  literature  must  depend  upon  The 
Christian  Year,  a  volume  of  religious  poetry,  concerning 
which  a  famous  Cambridge  divine  declared  that  one  verse 
of  it  was  worth  volumes  of  Tennyson.  Such  a  criticism 
only  leads  us  to  "disable  the  judgment"  of  the  critic.  There 
is  far  more  insight  in  Bagehot's  saying  that  Keble  had 
translated  Wordsworth  into  the  language  of  women. 

Among  the  Tractarians  who  remained,  like  Keble,  in  the 
Church  of  England,  the  most  influential,  and  in  some  ways 
the  greatest,  was  Edward  Bouverie  Pusey  (1800 — 1882). 
So  conspicuous  was  he  that  the  section  of  the  party  to 
which  he  belonged  came  to  be  widely  known  by  his  name  : 


16  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

they  were  the  Puseyites.  He  was  a  man  of  profound  learn- 
ing, and,  unlike  Newman,  he  was  familiar  with  German 
philosophy.  But  he  shrank  from  its  conclusions,  and  ap- 
parently, in  later  days,  even  regretted  his  own  early  studies 
in  it. 

The  Oxford  revivalists  dreaded  the  rationalism  which 
German  philosophy  seemed  to  foster,  and  distrusted  its 
influence  upon  their  students.  They  thought  they  saw 
the  evil  they  dreaded  exemplified  in  their  own  country 
'and  their  own  university.  Richard  Whately,  afterwards 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  and  Thomas  Arnold,  the  famous 
father  of  a  famous  son,  were  among  the  Noetics  mentioned 
above ;  and  their  "  liberal "  theology  was  the  ever-present 
dread  of  Newman.  The  influence  in  after  days  of  the  boys 
trained  by  Arnold  at  Rugby  showed  that  Newman  had, 
from  his  own  point  of  view,  good  ground  for  his  fears. 
Akin  in  spirit  to  these  men  was  Connop  Thirlwall,  the 
first  theologian  to  study  German  theology  seriously.  He 
translated  Schleiermacher's  Critical  Essay  on  Luke.  It  is 
somewhat  surprising  to  find  him  afterwards  amongst  the 
orthodox  clergy  who  condemned  the  writers  of  Essays  and 
Reviews  and  took  proceedings  against  them. 

Among  the  Oxford  theologians  who  followed  Thirlwall's 
lead  and  studied  German  literature  and  philosophy  were 
Benjamin  Jowett  (1817 — 1893)  and  his  friend  Arthur  Pen- 
rhyn  Stanley  ( 1 8 1 5 — 1 88 1 ), afterwards  Dean  of  Westminster. 
They  made  a  tour  of  Germany  together  and  brought  back 
ideas  which  were  afterwards  to  startle  Oxford.  Jowett's 
first  exposition  of  these  ideas  appeared  in  an  essay  on 
Interpretation  contributed  to  the  celebrated  Essays  and 
Reviews,  a  volume  of  papers  from  different  writers  which 
caused  an  uproar  among  the  High  Church  party,  almost 
equal  to  the  disturbance  which  Newman's  Tract  XC  had 
awakened  in  the  hearts  of  the  Low  Churchmen.  Two  of 
the  seven  contributors  were  prosecuted,  and  Jowett  was 


THE   PHILOSOPHERS  17 

excluded  for  many  years  from  preaching  outside  the  walls 
of  Balliol  College.  After  this  criticism  he  turned  from 
theology  and  set  about  the  Translation  of  Plato,  which  is 
his  most  valuable  contribution  to  literature. 

The  history  of  the  extraordinarily  influential  movement 
in  which  these  writers  and  many  others  were  diversely 
interested  is  best  read  in  Newman's  Apologia,  which, 
although  only  a  spiritual  autobiography,  throws  more  light 
on  the  religious  history  of  that  period  than  anything  else 
that  has  been  written.  The  Oxford  Movement  by  Richard 
William  Church  (1815 — 1889)  ranks  second  to  Newman's 
great  work — a  distant  second.  Church  was  one  of  the 
most  accomplished  literary  critics  as  well  as  one  of  the 
foremost  ecclesiastics  of  his  time.  But  accomplished  as  he 
was,  Church  was  the  incarnation  of  modesty.  It  has  been 
said  of  him  that  he  is  the  only  author  who  has  ever  written 
the  history  of  events  in  which  he  took  a  large  part  without 
mentioning  his  own  name. 

These  men  belong  to  literature,  as  we  said  before,  not 
so  much  because  of  what  they  wrote,  as  because  the  move- 
ment of  which  they  formed  part,  though  it  produced  few 
notable  books,  influenced  many  minds,  and  left  its  traces 
on  things  so  diverse  as  poetry,  architecture,  painting,  and 
even  furniture  and  wall-papers.  The  Pre-Raphaelites  were 
not  Newmanites,  but  they  would  have  been  different  men 
had  it  not  been  for  Newman's  work. 

§  3.     The  Philosophers 

For  purposes  of  clearness  the  philosophers  of  the 
Victorian  era  may  be  divided  into  the  men  of  the  Scottish 
School,  the  Utilitarians,  the  Positivists  and  the  English 
Hegelians.  The  students  of  the  philosophy  of  history 
form  a  group  apart. 

The  Scottish  professor  of  philosophy  has  a  position  of 
w.  2 


i8  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

very  great  power,  if  only  he  knows  how  to  use  it.  Year 
after  year  scores  of  young  men,  on  the  whole  the  tlite  of 
the  country,  pass  under  his  influence.  They  are  nearly  all 
more  or  less  imbued  with  the  national  taste  for  speculation, 
nearly  all  disposed  to  regard  the  professor  as  an  oracle. 
They  become  in  after  life,  each  in  his  own  sphere,  the 
leaders  of  the  nation.  The  advocate  at  the  bar,  the  village 
minister,  doctor,  lawyer,  schoolmaster,  thus  receive  their 
education  ;  and  through  them  the  influence  of  one  powerful 
mind  may  filter  down  to  hundreds  and  thousands  who  never 
heard  so  much  as  the  name  of  the  teacher.  Ever  since  the 
revival  of  the  Scottish  universities  in  the  eighteenth  century 
there  have  been  a  few  men  who  have  known  how  to  wield 
this  influence.  Sir  William  Hamilton  (1788—1856),  pro- 
fessor of  logic  and  metaphysics  in  Edinburgh  University, 
was  one  of  them.  Until  his  appointment  to  this  position 
philosophy  had  somewhat  lost  ground.  Professor  Campbell 
Eraser  declares  that  in  1836,  the  year  of  Hamilton's  ap- 
pointment, it  was  at  a  lower  ebb  than  it  had  ever  been  in 
Scotland  since  the  coming  of  Francis  Hutcheson  from 
Ireland.  It  fell  to  Hamilton  to  lift  it  once  more  to  its 
old  position. 

Hamilton  had  reached  middle  life  when  he  took  up  his 
work  in  Edinburgh.  He  had  the  advantage  of  the  training 
of  both  a  Scottish  and  an  English  university.  He  studied 
for  the  bar,  and  acquired  sufficient  legal  skill  to  establish 
his  own  claim  to  a  baronetcy.  But  his  first  interest  was 
philosophy.  He  read  enormously,  and  scarcely  any  subject 
came  amiss.  Even  witchcraft  commended  itself  to  him  for 
serious  study.  Unfortunately  there  is  little  fruit  of  this 
industry.  His  work  was  mainly  done  in  the  lecture  rooms, 
and  his  chief  contribution  to  philosophy,  Lectures  on  Meta- 
physics and  Logic,  was  not  published  until  after  his  death. 
Hamilton's  value  as  a  philosopher  was  seriously  diminished 
by  his  devotion  to  the  teaching  of  his  Scottish  predecessors, 


THE    PHILOSOPHERS  19 

and  by  his  inability  or  unwillingness  to  recognise  the 
importance  of  the  principles  to  be  found  in  the  works  of 
the  German  philosopher  Kant.  The  St  Andrews  philo- 
sopher Ferrier  says  that  Hamilton  would  have  done  better 
"  had  he  built  entirely  on  his  own  foundation,  instead  of 
trying  to  defend  a  worn-out  system  against  the  attacks  of 
the  sceptic  philosopher  Hume."  Ferrier  believed  that 
Hamilton  had  it  in  him,  had  he  worked  independently,  to 
build  up  theories  which  were  likely  to  endure. 

It  was  left  to  Hamilton's  pupil,  Henry  Longueville 
Mansel  (1820 — 1871),  Dean  of  St  Paul's,  to  adapt  the 
teaching  of  his  master  to  theology.  His  most  original 
book  is  his  Limits  of  Religious  Thought.  It  attracted 
much  attention,  and  provoked  intense  dislike  in  the  minds 
of  Maurice,  Mill,  and  Huxley.  The  last  named  compared 
Mansel  to  the  drunken  fellow  in  the  picture  of  a  contested 
election  by  Hogarth,  who  is  sawing  through  a  signpost 
on  the  outer  end  of  which  he  is  sitting.  Huxley  meant 
that  the  signpost  was  Church  doctrine,  the  doctrine  held 
in  St  Paul's,  and  Mansel,  the  Dean,  was  unconsciously 
cutting  it  in  two. 

The  sway  of  the  Scottish  philosophers  ended  with  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  their  place  was 
taken  in  the  third  quarter  by  the  Utilitarians.  The  founder 
of  this  school  was  Jeremy  Bentham,  and  his  prophet  was 
James  Mill,  the  father  of  J.  S.  Mill.  Their  formula  was 
"  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number,"  and  they 
taught  that  this  happiness  depended  mainly  on  material 
conditions  and  was  identical  with  pleasure. 

With  the  exception  of  John  Stuart  Mill  (1806 — 1873), 
the  son  of  James  Mill,  the  Utilitarians  have  contributed 
little  to  literature ;  but  we  owe  to  their  initiative  some  of 
our  greatest  social  reforms.  They  were  the  pioneers  of  free 
education  ;  they  fought  for  that  liberty  of  thought  which, 
besides  conferring  other  benefits,  has  flung  open  the  learning 

2 — 2 


20  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  to  dissenters  ;  and  they  were  the 
champions  of  the  democracy  whose  advent  to  power  is  the 
greatest  political  feature  of  this  country  and  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  As  their  greatest  man  is  J.  S.  Mill  it  is  of  interest 
to  examine  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  was  brought  up. 
His  father  educated  him.  He  allowed  the  boy  to  read 
neither  poetry  nor  romance,  and  shut  him  out  from  all  the 
influences  of  religion.  Everything  tended  to  repression  so 
strongly  that  it  has  even  been  suggested  that  the  real 
John  Stuart  Mill  may  never  have  lived.  As  a  boy,  he 
was  a  prodigy  in  learning.  At  three  years  of  age,  a  mere 
baby  in  the  nursery,  he  learnt  Greek.  When  he  grew  to 
manhood  he  found  himself,  he  says,  "  with  an  advantage  of 
a  quarter  of  a  century  over  my  contemporaries  " ;  and  when 
we  find  men  of  talent,  and  even  of  genius,  who  were  ten  or 
twelve  years  his  seniors,  treating  him  even  in  boyhood  as 
an  equal,  we  see  that  there  must  have  been  good  ground 
for  the  assertion. 

This  early  recognition  of  his  great  gifts  neither  produced 
conceit  nor  diminished  the  simple  beauty  of  Mill's  character. 
Sir  Henry  Taylor  declared  him  to  be  so  naturally  and 
necessarily  good  that  men  hardly  thought  of  him  as  having 
occasion  for  a  conscience.  Gladstone  called  him  the  "  saint 
of  rationalism,"  and  the  painter  Watts's  portrait  of  him, 
fascinating  in  its  delicate  refinement,  justifies  this  descrip- 
tion. The  secret  of  this  attractiveness  may  be  found  in  the 
simple  rule  of  life  which  he  set  before  himself:  "Try  thy- 
self unweariedly  till  thou  findest  the  highest  thing  thou 
art  capable  of  doing,  faculties  and  outward  circumstance 
being  both  duly  considered,  and  then  DO  IT." 

Mill  married  the  widow  of  a  certain  Mr  Taylor.  She 
seems  to  have  been  a  woman  of  unusual  powers ;  at  any 
rate  he  attributes  all  his  highest  work  to  her  inspiration. 
It  may  be  that  her  sympathetic  comprehension  of  his  nature 
helped  him  to  break  down  the  self-repression  due  to  his 


THE   PHILOSOPHERS  21 

early  training,  and  increased  his  enjoyment  of  life  and  his 
powers  of  production.  In  his  generosity  he  laid  at  her  feet 
honours  that  were  his  own.  For  thirty  years  Mill  lived  a 
strenuous  life.  He  worked  as  civil  servant  in  the  India 
Office,  and  did  his  literary  work  after  this  daily  toil  was 
over.  He  was  elected  Member  of  Parliament  for  West- 
minster, having  been  chosen,  as  candidates  rarely  are,  for 
his  distinction  in  philosophy  and  his  interest  in  good 
government.  At  the  election  of  1868,  however,  this  con- 
stituency forgot  its  high  ideals,  and  Mill  was  defeated. 
A  few  years  later  he  retired  to  Avignon,  where  he  died. 
The  System  of  Logic  is  Mill's  most  original  work.  It 
has  been  superseded  now,  but  for  a  time  it  was  the 
text  book  on  its  subject,  and  it  was  one  of  the  most 
influential  books  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Bagehot,  the 
economist,  said,  when  Mill  died,  that  half  the  minds  of  the 
younger  generation  of  Englishmen  had  been  coloured  by 
the  Logic.  The  Principles  of  Political  Economy  is  less 
original  than  the  Logic,  but  it  is  interesting,  because  in 
it  Mill  finds  place  for  his  views  upon  government,  land 
tenure,  rent  and  other  economic  problems.  The  little  book 
upon  Liberty  would  also  deserve  notice,  were  it  only  because 
the  writer  is  so  profoundly  in  earnest.  Nothing  roused  Mill 
to  fiercer  wrath  than  an  infringement  of  liberty,  whether  it 
was  in  the  name  of  the  sovereign,  or  of  the  mob,  or  of  religion, 
or  of  law.  In  another  sense  also  this  book  is  important. 
Although  it  was  published  in  the  same  year  as  Darwin's 
Origin  of  Species,  it  is  remarkable,  as  are  all  the  works 
of  the  Utilitarians,  for  the  total  absence  of  any  recognition 
in  it  of  the  idea  of  heredity.  Hegel  and  Herbert  Spencer 
in  philosophy,  and  Lamarck,  Lyell  and  Darwin  in  science, 
all  live  and  breathe  in  the  atmosphere  created  by  the  idea 
of  evolution.  It  is  the  master  thought  of  the  century ;  yet 
not  only  Mill  but  all  the  Utilitarians  write  as  if  it  did  not 
exist. 


22  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

Among  the  names  of  those  who  in  later  days  have 
partially  followed  Mill,  there  is  none  more  honoured  or 
more  honourable  than  that  of  Henry  Sidgwick  (1838— 
1900).  He  began  work  in  Cambridge  as  a  classical 
lecturer,  but  discovered  that  his  true  interest  lay  in  moral 
science.  He  exchanged  his  classical  post  for  a  lectureship 
in  moral  philosophy  at  a  time  when  this  school  was  in  its 
infancy.  More  than  twenty  years  later  he  became  professor 
of  the  subject  in  Cambridge.  His  three  important  works 
are  Methods  of  Ethics,  Principles  of  Political  Economy  and 
Elements  of  Politics.  The  names  of  two  of  them  suggest 
that  application  of  philosophy  to  the  difficulties  of  ordinary 
life  which  marks  the  work  of  Mill. 

The  next  philosophical  group,  the  Positivists,  contains 
four  names  of  special  interest — George  Eliot,  George  Henry 
Lewes,  Harriet  Martineau  and  Richard  Congreve,  the  last 
of  whom  founded  the  Positivist  community  in  London. 
The  founder  of  Positivism  was  the  French  thinker,  Comte. 
He  had  the  vice,  rare  in  French  writers,  of  obscurity.  His 
manner  of  expressing  himself  was  so  confusing,  even  in 
his  own  language,  that  the  paraphrase  made  by  Harriet 
Martineau  of  his  works  was  translated  into  French  and 
became  one  of  the  chief  channels  through  which  his  fellow- 
countrymen  learnt  to  understand  his  ideas.  These  had 
a  great  attraction  for  persons  like  Harriet  Martineau  and 
George  Eliot,  who  felt  their  religious  beliefs  crumbling 
in  the  conflict  between  reason  and  faith.  They  thought 
that  they  had  found  in  their  love  for  Humanity  an  object 
of  worship  which  could  satisfy  the  soul  without  offending 
the  intellect. 

In  the  novels  of  George  Eliot  positivism  was  merely  one 
of  many  strains  of  thought,  and  as  a  system  it  is  only  of 
secondary  importance  in  her  work.  But  G.  H.  Lewes  ( 1 8 1 7 — 
1878),  afterwards  her  husband,  expounded  it  in  his  books, 
Comte 's  Philosophy  of  the  Sciences,  and  Problems  of  Life  and 


THE    PHILOSOPHERS  23 

Mind.  In  the  History  of  Philosophy  too  he  shows  himself 
an  ardent  disciple.  But  the  versatility  of  Levves's  genius 
and  the  variety  of  his  attainments  made  his  work  bright 
and  attractive  rather  than  profound,  and  left  his  readers 
suspicious  that  in  his  philosophical  works  he  had  furnished 
them  with  "  the  art  of  amusing  themselves  with  method," 
rather  than  with  a  reason  for  their  faith.  Thackeray  ex- 
pressed the  contemporary  feeling  entertained  for  Lewes 
when  he  declared  that  he  would  not  be  surprised  to  see  / 
him  riding  down  Piccadilly  on  a  white  elephant. 

There  was  none  of  Lewes's  light-heartedness  in  the 
philosophy  of  Harriet  Martineau  (1802 — 1876).  She  came 
of  a  Unitarian  family  and  was  brought  up  in  that  intellectual 
society  which,  with  the  even  more  famous  artistic  set,  found 
a  home  in  Norwich  in  the  beginning  of  the  century.  In 
disposition  she  was  somewhat  like  the  dog  which  Dr  John 
Brown  describes  as  unable  to  get  his  fill  of  fighting. 
"  Dogmatic,  hasty,  imperious,"  W.  R.  Greg  calls  her.  She 
was  a  woman  more  likely  to  influence  by  the  force  of  her 
writings  than  by  their  charm.  Yet  she  wrote  a  novel, 
Deerbrook,  which  Caroline  Fox  says  "inspires  trust  and 
love,  faith  in  its  fulness,  resignation  in  its  meekness."  She 
wrote  histories,  tales  illustrative  of  the  laws  of  political 
economy,  and  many  pamphlets  on  questions  of  government. 
But  the  book  by  which  her  fame  will  live  is  her  Positive 
Philosophy  of  Auguste  Comte^  in  which  she  not  merely 
condenses  but  interprets  the  philosopher's  meaning. 

The  Hegelian  was  another  school  of  philosophy  of 
foreign  extraction  which  was  destined  to  spread  its  in- 
fluence far  and  wide  in  England.  The  Germans  have 
given  us  in  the  principles  of  Hegel  and,  in  the  more 
distant  past,  of  Kant,  a  point  of  view  which  has  influenced 
the  whole  of  our  thought.  These  new  ideals  filtered  into 
the  English  mind  through  the  writings  of  Coleridge  and 
Carl^de ;  but  they  were  not,  until  a  more  recent  date, 


24  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

embodied  in  formal  works  on  the  subject.  The  first  home 
of  the  English  Hegelians  was  in  Oxford,  and  Jowett,  the 
Master  of  Balliol,  already  mentioned  amongst  the  theo- 
logians, was  the  most  influential  of  the  school.  Although 
he  would  have  objected  to  being  called  a  Hegelian,  it  is  the 
spirit  of  this  philosophy  which  arrests  and  interests  us  in 
his  commentaries  on  the  Thessalonians,  Galatians  and 
Romans,  and  also  in  his  introductions  to  Plato.  Writing 
of  Hegelianism,  Jowett  says,  "  It  is  impossible  to  be 
satisfied  with  any  other  system,  after  you  have  begun  with 
this."  It  was  under  his  care  that  this  school  of  thought 
was  nourished,  and  it  is  in  the  works  of  his  pupils,  T.  H. 
Green  and  Edward  Caird,  that  the  younger  generation  of 
thinkers  have  found  the  system  formulated  for  their  study. 
Jowett  contributed  nothing  to  the  expansion  of  the  system. 
Perhaps  his  greatest  legacy  to  his  country  has  been  his 
high  conception  of  the  ends  and  aims  of  University  life. 
He  was  not  oblivious  of  the  value  of  high  scholarship,  but 
he  laid  much  greater  stress  upon  the  training  of  the  under- 
graduates for  work  in  life  and  for  the  service  of  their  fellow 
men.  Among  the  men  whom  he  moulded  was  the  philosopher 
Thomas  Hill  Green  (1836 — 1882),  whose  greatest  work,  the 
Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  was  published  after  the  death  of  its 
author.  Green  is  one  of  the  deepest  thinkers  of  the  century. 
He  sets  himself  the  task  of  refuting  the  Utilitarian  idea 
that  to  attain  pleasure  or  happiness  is  the  true  end  of  an 
action.  The  object  of  man's  struggle  on  earth  ought  to  be, 
Green  feels,  "some  perfection  of  human  life,  some  realization 
of  human  life."  It  should  be  sufficient  for  mankind  to  know 
that  there  is  an  improvement  in  conduct  and  character,  and 
it  should  not  be  necessary  that  this  improvement  should  be 
accompanied  by  increased  pleasure. 

Green's  writings  are  very  hard  to  follow  because  of  his 
inability  to  express  himself  easily  and  simply,  and  his 
contemporary  Edward  Caird  (1835 — 1908)  has  for  this 


THE    PHILOSOPHERS  25 

reason,  and  also  because  of  his  longer  life,  been  able  to 
do  greater  work  than  he  as  a  teacher  and  writer  upon 
Hegelianism.  The  methods  of  the  two  men  were  singularly 
different.  Green  sought  to  make  his  meaning  clear  to  the 
student,  by  finding  in  some  other  philosopher,  like  Hume, 
whom  he  happened  to  be  criticising,  a  thought  in  opposition 
to  his  own.  Caird,  on  the  other  hand,  found  it  more  helpful 
to  search  for  points  of  agreement  between  himself  and  the 
writer  he  was  explaining.  Caird  held  the  professorship  of 
moral  philosophy  in  Glasgow  University  for  twenty-seven 
years.  When  he  succeeded  to  it  his  subject  had  fallen  into 
disrepute  ;  when  he  left  in  1893  to  succeed  Jowett  as  Master 
of  Balliol,  he  had  won  for  himself  and  for  his  school  of 
philosophy  the  respect  of  all  scholars,  and  was  recognised 
as  the  greatest  of  all  living  exponents  of  Hegelianism. 
Caird  was  eminently  fair  minded.  He  made  no  converts 
by  violence,  but  probably  no  man  who  understood  his 
lectures  failed  to  be  permanently  influenced  by  him.  His 
best  known  books  are  The  Evolution  of  Religion  and  The 
Evolution  of  Theology  in  the  Greek  Philosophers.  His  trea- 
tise on  The  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant  is  more  technical, 
and  therefore  to  most  readers  more  difficult  than  the 
others. 

James  Martineau  (1805 — fQOO),  the  gifted  brother  of 
Harriet  Martineau,  though  he  differed  from  Caird  and  Green 
in  principle  and  method,  was  like  them  in  his  appreciation 
of  German  philosophy.  With  his  name  may  be  coupled 
that  of  F.  W.  Newman  (1805 — 1897),  the  learned  brother 
of  Cardinal  Newman,  who  had  travelled  far  on  the  path  of 
scepticism  while  his  brother  was  moving  towards  Rome. 
Martineau  became  professor  of  mental  and  moral  philosophy 
at  Manchester  New  College,  Oxford,  and  F.  W.  Newman 
held  a  post  on  the  same  teaching  staff.  Phases  of  Faith, 
by  Newman,  is  a  sincere  and  readable  account  of  his  own 
spiritual  experiences,  but  his  book  The  Soul,  so  popular  at 


26  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

its  publication,  is  now  hardly  remembered.  Martineau  has 
written  books  which  place  him  high  among  the  philosophers 
of  the  time.  And  he  has  a  claim  for  remembrance  in  his 
high-mindedness,  and  in  the  simple  integrity  of  his  life. 
His  principal  books  are  Studies  of  Christianity,  A  Study  of 
Spinoza,  Types  of  Ethical  Theory  and  The  Seat  of  A  uthority 
in  Religion. 

Side  by  side  with  these  French  and  German  schools  of 
philosophy  was  the  English  school  of  evolution ;  but  its 
pioneer,  Charles  Darwin,  was  a  mafT"of  science  and  its 
history  comes  later,  in  the  section  devoted  to  science. 

There  remain  three  men  of  great  interest  in  connexion 
with  the  philosophy  of  history — Buckle,  Maine,  and  Bagehot. 
They  are  taken  together  because  of  their  endeavour,  in  their 
various  books,  to  study  history  from  a  philosophical  stand- 
point. They  have  tried,  not  to  give  a  narrative  of  past 
events,  but  to  abstract  from  the  history  of  the  events 
related  by  others  a  body  of  principles  and  laws. 

Henry  Thomas  Buckle  (1821 — 1862)  was  a  delicate 
child,  and  home  tuition  had  often  to  supplement  the 
regular  work  of  school,  which  he  left  at  fourteen.  He 
did  not  go  to  a  University,  and  this  may  account  for 
some  of  the  deficiencies  and  also  for  much  of  the 
freshness  of  his  work.  He  read  everything  he  could  lay 
hands  upon,  and  had  a  memory  which  rivalled  that  of 
Macaulay  in  its  tenacity.  The  result  was  that  at  twenty- 
nine  he  found  himself  with  a  working  knowledge  of  nineteen 
languages.  The  death  of  his  father  eight  years  before  had 
left  him  in  possession,  like  Darwin,  of  a  sufficient  fortune  ; 
and  thus  he  was  enabled  to  follow  the  bent  of  his  own 
mind.  Buckle  believed  that  the  movements  of  men,  which 
appear  to  be  controlled  by  their  own  caprice,  or  shall  we 
say  will,  are  really  governed  by  laws.  On  the  surface  a 
man  appears  to  marry  when  he  will,  to  select  his  own 
business  or  profession  according  to  his  own  inclination,  to 


THE   PHILOSOPHERS  27 

go  abroad  or  stay  at  home  as  fancy  dictates.  An  examina- 
tion of  statistics  suggests  that  all  these  voluntary  acts  are 
really  done  in  obedience  to  laws.  If  food  is  costly  the 
number  of  marriages  decreases;  if  there  is  a  demand  for 
schoolmasters  the  training  colleges  are  full  and  more 
lecturers  are  required ;  if  labour  is  needed  abroad  the 
wages  in  that  locality  go  up  and  emigrants  flock  thither. 
The  task  of  the  philosopher  of  history  is  to  discover  the 
tables  of  stone  on  which  these  laws  are  written.  He  has 
no  early  records  to  search ;  he  must  work  backward  from 
the  event  to  its  cause.  Buckle,  referring  to  his  own  labours, 
says,  "  I  have  been  long  convinced,  that  the  progress  of 
every  people  is  regulated  by  principles — or,  as  they  are 
called,  laws — as  regular  and  certain  as  those  which  govern 
the  physical  world.  To  discover  those  laws  is  the  object 
of  my  work."  In  speaking  of  his  History  of  Civilization  4 
in  England  he  says,  "  It  is  an  attempt  to  rescue  history  '' 
from  the  hands  of  annalists,  chroniclers  and  antiquarians." 
The  plan  of  this  book  was  formed  in  early  life,  and  Buckle 
gave  up  the  whole  of  his  manhood  to  it.  The  first  volume 
placed  him  high  in  the  rank  of  men  of  letters,  and  the 
second  was  equally  popular.  The  third  appeared  after 
his  death.  Contemporary  with  it  there  appeared  Carlyle's 
volumes  on  Frederick  the  Great,  and  it  is  suggestive 
to  compare  the  different  points  of  view  of  these  two 
writers.  Buckle  expected  to  find  among  average  men 
the  key  to  their  own  age;  Carlyle,  on  the  other  hand, 
insisted  that  it  can  only  be  found  in  the  thoughts  of  the 
greatest. 

Sir  Henry  Sumner  Maine  (1822 — 1888)  took  a  much 
narrower  field  for  his  investigations  than  Buckle ;  he  con- 
fined himself  to  the  subject  of  laws  and  institutions.  His 
process  of  work  was  very  much  the  same  as  that  pursued 
by  Charles  Darwin  in  his  Origin  of  Species.  A  law  or  an 
institution  was  for  him  a  point  in  a  process  of  evolution, 


28  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

and,  however  ancient  it  might  be,  he  regarded  it  as  some- 
thing which  had  a  vital  bearing  upon  the  present.  He  no 
more  recognised  a  break  in  the  generations  of  laws  and 
institutions,  than  Darwin  did  in  the  lives  of  animals  and 
men. 

Walter  Bagehot  (1826 — 1877),  the  youngest  of  the 
group,  differed  from  both.  He  was  the  exceptional  man 
who  found  business  "much  more  amusing  than  pleasure," 
and  he  is  probably  the  only  writer  who  ever  made  the 
Stock  Exchange  entertaining  to  the  public  who  are  not 
interested  in  shares  and  stocks.  Clough,  the  poet,  was  at 
University  College,  London,  when  Bagehot  was  a  student 
there,  and  he  gave  the  young  financier  the  literary  interests 
which  might  otherwise  have  been  left  out  of  his  education. 
Perhaps  he  helped  to  impart  also  that  power  of  terse  and 
pointed  expression  which  enables  Bagehot  to  put  familiar 
truths  in  a  memorable  way,  as  when  he  tells  us  that  "a 
constitutional  statesman  is  in  general  a  man  of  common 
opinions  and  uncommon  abilities."  He  certainly  did  not 
impart  that  wit  and  humour  which  from  time  to  time 
lights  up  his  pupil's  wisdom,  as  in  the  irresistible  descrip- 
tion of  the  schoolmaster :  "  A  schoolmaster  should  have 
an  atmosphere  of  awe,  and  walk  wonderingly,  as  if  he  was 
amazed  at  being  himself." 

The  subjects  on  which  Bagehot  had  been  training 
himself  for  years  to  write  are  treated  in  his  book  called 
Lombard^S  treet,  a  Description  of  the  Money  Market,  and 
in  his  English  Constitution.  There  is  no  other  book  on  the 
English  constitution  comparable  to  his  in  interest  for  the 
general  reader ;  there  is  no  other  book  on  the  money 
market  which  is  entertaining  as  well  as  instructive.  These, 
with  Physics  and  Politics,  are  his  most  important  contribu- 
tions to  thought  and  literature. 


SCIENCE  29 


§  4.     Science 

We  have  now  reached  the  fourth  and  last  division  of 
this  chapter  treating  of  the  thinkers  and  writers  upon 
abstruse  subjects.  At  first  sight  it  seems  wayward  to 
drag  the  work  of  men  of  science  into  a  book  upon 
English  literature ;  but  Ruskin,  the  foremost  English 
critic  of  art,  reproached  the  poet  Wordsworth  because  "  he 
could  not  understand  that  to  break  a  rock  with  a  hammer 
in  search  of  crystal  may  sometimes  be  an  act  not  disgrace- 
ful to  human  nature,  and  that  to  dissect  a  flower  may 
sometimes  be  as  proper  as  to  dream  over  it."  Ruskin's 
own  criticism  rests  upon  science ;  and  this  recognition  by 
men  of  letters  of  the  importance  of  scientific  research,  even  *y 
as  a  means  of  culture  for  poets,  is  the  outcome  of  the  in- 
vestigations of  the  nineteenth  century.  These  investigations 
had  the  most  profound  effect  upon  the  whole  mind  of  man. 
From  scientific  experiments  men  slowly  came  to  believe 
that  all  nature  was  under  the  reign  of  law,  and  that  even 
the  winds  were  the  effect  of  causes  which  might  be  counted 
upon  to  act  with  regularity.  It  was  only  in  the  nineteenth 
century  that  geology  ceased  to  be  "  catastrophic  "  and  be- 
came "  uniformitarian  "  or,  in  other  words,  that  earthquakes 
and  volcanoes  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  the  main  agents  of 
change,  and  the  conception  of  forces  operating  slowly, 
silently,  invisibly,  took  their  place.  A  change  of  view  so 
far-reaching  could  not  be  without  effect  on  literature. 

For  the  present  purpose  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  the 
man  chiefly  instrumental  in  bringing  about  this  change  of 
view  was  Sir  Charles^ Lyell  (1797 — 1875).  In  his  Principles 
of  Geology  Lyell  points  out  the  changes  wrought  upon  the 
surface  of  the  earth  by  glacial  action,  rain  and  the  deposit 
of  mud  by  rivers.  Charles  Darwin  (1809 — 1882),  when  he 
started  on  his  voyage  round  the  world  in  the  ship  Beagle^ 


30  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

was  advised  by  Henslow  the  botanist  to  take  Lyell's  book 
with  him,  but  to  be  cautious  about  accepting  his  teaching. 
The  warning  was  in  vain,  for  at  the  first  opportunity  of 
geologising  Darwin  became  convinced  of  the  "  immense 
superiority"  of  Lyell's  views.  But  when  Darwin  applied 
similar  conceptions  to  living  beings  Lyell  would  not  at 
first  willingly  follow,  because  he  could  not  bring  himself  to 
admit  the,  to  him,  degrading  theory  that  man  is  descended 
from  brutes  ;  and  this  he  saw  must  be  the  outcome  of  the 
theory  of  evolution.  Yet  Darwin's  great  idea  of  the  modi- 
fication of  species  by  variations  acted  upon  by  external 
circumstances  is  in  effect  just  an  extension  of  Lyell's  own ; 
and  so  to  Lyell,  in  great  measure,  is  due  the  modern 
conception  of  the  government  of  the  world  by  regular 
laws. 

Lyell  has  a  place  in  literature  because  he  was  a  great 
man  of  science;  Hugh  Miller  (1802 — 1856),  the  stone- 
mason, has  a  place  in  science  because  he  was  a  great  man 
of  letters.  He  was  too  ill-trained  to  make  great  additions 
to  theory  ;  but  his  personality  and  his  power  of  writing  fine 
strong  English  make  his  name  memorable.  Miller's  truth- 
fulness is  his  chief  asset  in  the  sphere  of  science.  He 
looked  with  his  own  eyes,  and  he  faithfully  described  what 
he  saw,  so  that  even  when  his  inferences  were  wrong  his 
work  was  of  value.  His  Footprints  of  the  Creator  is  an 
answer  to  Vestiges  of  the  Natural  History  of  the  Creation, 
published  anonymously  in  1844,  and  acknowledged  forty 
years  later  to  be  the  work  of  Robert  Chambers,  the  junior 
member  of  the  great  Edinburgh  publishing  house  of  W.  and 
R.  Chambers.  Both  members  of  this  house  were  active 
with  their  pens,  but  Robert  is  the  more  distinguished  writer. 
When  in  1823  he  published  his  Traditions  of  Edinburgh, 
Scott  asked  with  wonder  where  the  boy  had  got  his  in- 
formation. His  Vestiges  passed  into  ten  editions  in  nine 
years.  Its  author  had  grasped  the  great  idea  of  evolution, 


SCIENCE  31 

and  he  had  the  gift  of  writing  in  a  popular  way.  Darwin 
thought  the  writing  and  arrangement  of  the  book  admir- 
able, but  its  geology  bad  and  its  zoology  far  worse.  It 
remained  for  him  in  his  Origin  of  Species  to  arrange  and 
formulate  the  idea  which  Chambers  had  broached,  and  to 
establish  for  us  the  most  far-reaching  theory  of  the  century. 
The  idea  of  evolution,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  was 
not  unknown  before  Darwin.  More  than  one  scientific 
researcher  had  touched  it,  and  it  had  been  introduced  into 
philosophy  by  the  Hegelians  and  by  Herbert  Spencer 
(1820 — 1903).  The  latter  framed  the  Synthetic  Philosophy 
to  show  how  the  universe  was  gradually  developed  from 
beginning  to  end,  if  it  can  be  said  to  have  an  end.  The 
books  belonging  to  his  system  are  entitled  First  Prin- 
ciples, Principles  of  Biology,  Principles  of  Sociology,  and 
Principles  of  Ethics.  In  them  he  seeks  to  explain  the 
"continuous  re-distribution  of  matter  and  motion."  He 
maintains  that  there  is  no  impassable  division  between  the 
world  of  dead  matter  and  the  world  of  living  things  ;  and, 
similarly,  that  the  vegetable  world  shades  into  the  animal. 
Even  people  who  are  not  scientific  can  at  least  see  that 
there  are  plants,  like  the  sensitive  plant,  which  show  powers 
similar  to  animal  powers,  and  they  know  that  some  things 
which  have  animal  life  are,  to  their  eyes,  more  like  vege- 
tables than  animals.  Spencer  tries  to  show  us  grounds  for 
believing  that  complex  forms  of  life  come  out  of  simple 
ones.  But  his  theory  breaks  off  abruptly  at  the  point 
which  divides  that  which  has  life  from  that  which  has  none, 
and  the  only  thing  which  we  are  sure  of  is  that  he  has  not 
been  able  to  tell  us  whence  we  came,  or  whither  we  are 
going.  He  and  the  French  philosopher  Comte  took  all 
knowledge  for  their  province,  and  the  very  greatness  of 
their  conception  of  their  task  marks  them  as  very  extra- 
ordinary men.  Darwin  says  of  Spencer,  "If  he  had 
trained  himself  to  observe  more,  even  if  at  the  expense, 


32  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

by  the  law  of  balancement,  of  some  thinking  power,  he 
would  have  been  a  wonderful  man." 

Darwin,  less  ambitious  than  Spencer,  contented  himself 
with  attempting  to  demonstrate  the  theory  of  evolution 
within  the  sphere  of  Jife,  animal  and  vegetable.  He  was 
the  greatest  biologist  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  few 
literary  men  have  written  with  more  charm  of  expression. 
Darwin  spent  seven  years  at  the  Grammar  School  of  Shrews- 
bury, where  his  interest  in  science  manifested  itself  in 
chemical  experiments,  and  brought  upon  him  the  nick- 
name of  "  Gas."  His  father  intended  him  for  the  medical 
profession,  and  sent  him  to  prepare  for  it  in  the  University 
of  Edinburgh.  He  only  remained  there  two  years,  for  he 
could  not  endure  the  sight  of  blood,  and  the  thought  of 
taking  part  in  an  operation  turned  him  from  the  work  of  a 
doctor.  His  next  university  was  Cambridge,  where  he 
went  to  prepare  for  the  Church.  We  are  tempted  to  smile 
now  at  the  idea ;  but  it  was  said  of  him  in  after  years  that 
he  possessed  "  the  bump  of  reverence  developed  enough  for 
ten  priests."  Darwin  left  Cambridge  with  no  higher  attain- 
ment than  a  pass  degree ;  but  he  had  acquired  a  friend  in 
Henslow  the  botanist,  had  made  a  collection  of  beetles,  and 
had  formed  at  least  a  taste  for  the  study  of  nature.  Although 
the  young  scientist  had  learned  little  or  nothing  from 
the  college  lectures,  which  he  describes  as  "fearfully  and 
incredibly  dull,"  he  had  been  training  himself  for  the  work 
of  his  life.  He  found  his  chance  when  Fitzroy  took  him 
as  naturalist  on  the  Beagle,  which  was  just  starting  for  a 
voyage  round  the  world.  He  owed  this  post  to  the  friend- 
ship of  Henslow,  but  he  very  nearly  lost  it  because  of  the 
shape  of  his  nose  ;  he  says  that  Fitzroy  "  doubted  whether 
any  one  with  my  nose  could  possess  sufficient  energy  and 
determination  for  the  voyage."  Darwin  justified  his  nose, 
for  he  amassed  on  that  voyage  the  material  which  was  to 
form  the  basis  of  all  his  later  work,  and  to  enable  him  to 


SCIENCE  33 

furnish  proof  of  the  soundness  of  his  theory  of  evolution. 
The  influence  of  this  voyage  on  him  was  incalculable ;  on 
his  return  his  father,  a  trained  observer,  remarked  that  the 
very  shape  of  his  head  was  altered.  Unfortunately,  while 
giving  him  such  rich  material,  it  at  the  same  time  seriously 
undermined  his  constitution. 

Darwin's  mental  growth  was  now  nearly  complete,  and 
for  the  future  the  events  of  his  life  are  chiefly  the  dates  of 
the  publication  of  his  books.  He  married  in  1839,  and 
some  time  later  moved  from  London  to  Down,  in  Kent, 
where  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  never  allowed  the 
ill-health,  which  was  the  consequence  of  the  voyage  in  the 
Beagle^  to  daunt  him  in  his  search  after  scientific  truth.  In 
the  twenty  years  of  thought  which  Darwin  gave  to  the 
question  of  the  forms  of  life  before  he  published  his  greatest 
book,  TJie  Origin  of  Species,  he  became  more  and  more 
convinced  that  no  form  is  absolutely  stable  and  unchange- 
able. Animals  and  plants  alike  tend  to  vary  from  the  type 
of  their  parents ;  and  geology  convinced  him  that  in  the 
long  course  of  ages  the  variations  became  very  great  For 
a  while  he  could  think  of  no  explanation  ;  but  at  last  the 
reading  of  the  book  by  Malthus  upon  the  problem  of  popula- 
tion gave  him  the  key.  The  central  doctrine  of  that  book 
is  that  population  tends  to  increase  faster  than  the  food 
required  to  supply  their  needs.  Darwin  at  once  saw  that 
such  a  tendency  must  result  in  a  struggle  for  existence,  in 
which  those  individuals  which  were  best  adapted  to  their 
circumstances  would  win.  Hence  the  "survival  of  the\ 
fittest."  The  phrase  belongs  to  Spencer,  but  the  concep-- 
tion  exactly  fits  Darwin's  theory.  Variation  then  gives 
certain  living  beings  an  advantage  over  others,  and  heredity 
tends  to  accumulate  the  variations  until  new  species  are 
formed.  Darwin's  own  phrase  for  the  process  thus  described 
was  "  natural  selection."  This  he  considered  not  the  only, 
but  by  far  the  most  important,  force  in  the  production  of 
w.  3 


34  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

new  species  of  plants  and  animals.  The  theory  in  its  main 
outlines  was  clear  in  Darwin's  mind  nearly  four  years  before 
he  began  to  write  upon  it.  When  he  did  begin  it  was  on 
a  scale  three  or  four  times  as  great  as  that  adopted  in  The 
Origin  of  Species ;  and  yet  even  this  was  only  an  abstract 
of  the  materials  he  had  collected.  In  1858,  when  he  was 
still  engaged  upon  this  work,  Darwin  received  the  famous 
essay  of  Mr  A.  R.  Wallace,  entitled  On  the  Tendency  of 
Varieties  to  depart  indefinitely  from  the  Original  Type.  It 
showed  that  Mr  Wallace  had  simultaneously  come  to  the 
same  conclusion  as  Darwin.  The  rest  of  the  story  of  this 
wonderful  dual  discovery  is  well  known.  An  abstract  from 
the  MS  of  Darwin  was  published  at  the  same  time  with 
the  essay  of  Wallace;  and  the  former  began  at  once  to 
re-write  his  book  on  a  smaller  scale.  The  Origin  of  Species 
was  published  in  1859.  Its  author  was  fifty,  and  he  had 
devoted  twenty  years  of  his  life  to  this  great  work — a  devo- 
tion possible  only  because  he  had  a  private  fortune.  After 
this  came  The  Descent  of  Man,  and  then  a  series  of  works 
illustrative  mainly  otvarious  aspects  of  the  theory  of 
evolution.  Darwin's  latest  publication  was  The  Formation 
of  Vegetable  Motdd  through  the  Action  of  Worms.  The 
enthusiasm  with  which  this  book  was  received  seemed  to  its 
author  almost  "  laughable,"  but  it  was  no  more  than  its 
due.  The  book  is  a  simple  direct  narrative  showing  so 
clearly  as  to  fascinate  the  reader  the  incalculable  im- 
portance of  the  action  of  a  creature  so  insignificant  as 
the  earthworm. 

Darwin  had  no  natural  gifts  of  literary  expression,  but 
he  felt  the  importance  of  being  able  to  say  exactly  what  he 
meant  in  the  simplest  words.  He  tried  hard  to  cultivate 
this  capacity :  "  No  nigger,"  he  says,  "  with  lash  over  him 
could  have  worked  harder  at  clearness  than  I  have  done." 
He  had  his  reward,  for  few  authors  have  attained  a  higher 
mastery  of  the  power  of  simple  attractive  narration.  With 


SCIENCE  35 

no  pretence  to  the  brilliancy  of  Huxley,  he  had  a  wonder- 
ful power  of  making  plain  even  to  the  uninstructed  the 
technicalities  of  science.  Doubtless  his  strict  adherence  to 
truth  helped  towards  this  result. 

Thomas  Henry  Huxley  (1825 — 1895)  says  that  he  took 
upon  himself  the  post  of  "  Darwin's  bulldog,  or  maid-of- 
all-work  and  gladiator-general  of  science."  By  this  assump- 
tion of  service  Huxley  brought  himself  into  prominence  as 
a  fighter  for  truth  and  became  one  of  the  chief  agents  in 
the  diffusion  of  evolutionary  ideas.  He  felt  the  joy  of 
battle.  But  through  all  his  many  controversies  he  was 
steadily  working  in  laboratories  and  talking  in  lecture 
rooms.  He  was  in  many  ways  the  complement  of  Darwin. 
The  latter  knew  little  anatomy,  while  Huxley  was  a  trained 
and  accomplished  anatomist ;  and  this  knowledge  enabled 
him  to  supplement  the  evidence  Darwin  had  adduced,  and 
to  combat  criticism  of  him  with  success.  For  example, 
Huxley  was  able  both  to  give  and  to  justify  a  direct  con- 
tradiction to  the  assertion  of  Richard  Owen  at  the  famous 
meeting  of  the  British  Association  in  1860,  that  the  differ- 
ence between  the  brain  of  a  man  and  that  of  the  highest 
ape  was  greater  than  the  difference  between  the  brains  of 
the  highest  and  lowest  quadrumana.  But  if  Huxley  did 
much  for  Darwin,  he  in  turn  gained  from  The  Origin  of 
Species  a  new  reason,  it  might  almost  be  said,  for  living ; 
for  in  the  service  of  the  theory  he  found  employment  for 
his  great  stores  of  knowledge.  His  place  in  literature 
depends  principally  upon  the  essays  and  lectures  in  which 
he  brings  science  to  bear  upon  the  interpretation  of  life 
and  criticises  old  beliefs. 


36  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 


§  i.     Carlyle. 

Thomas  Carlyle,  1795—1881. 
Life  of  Schiller,  1823—1824. 

Wilhelm  MeisteSs  Apprenticeship  (translation),  1824. 
Sartor  Resartus,  1833—1834. 
The  French  Revolution,  1837. 
Chartism,  \  839. 

Heroes  and  Hero-  Worship,  1 840. 
Past  and  Present,   1843. 

Oliver  Cromwell' ]s  Letters  and  Speeches,  1845. 
Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  1850. 
Life  of  Sterling,  1857. 
Frederick  the  Great,  1858—1865. 


§  2.     The  Theologians. 

Thomas  Chalmers,  1780—1847. 

Discourses  on  the  Christian  Revelation,  1817. 
Edward  Irving,  1792—1834. 
John  Henry  Newman,  1801 — 1890. 

The  Arians  of  the  Fourth  Century,  1833. 

Tracts  for  the  Times  (with  others),  1833—1849. 

Lyra  Apostolica  (with  others),  1836. 

An  Essay  on  the  Miracles  recorded  in  the  Ecclesiastical  History 
of  the  Early  Ages,   1 843. 

The  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,   1845. 

Loss  and  Gain,  1848. 

Callista,  1856. 

Apologia  pro  Vita  Sua,  1 864. 

The  Dream  of  Gerontius,  1865. 

Verses  on  Various  Occasions,  1868. 

A  Grammar  of  Assent,  1870. 
John  Keble,  1792—1866. 

Life  of  Bishop  Wilson,  1863. 
Edward  Bouverie  Pusey,  1806—1882. 

Historical  Enquiry  into  the  causes  of  the  Rationalist  Character 
of  German  Theology,  1828—1830. 


CARLYLE  AND  THE  SYSTEMATIC  THINKERS  37 

Richard  Whately,   1787—1863. 
Logic,  1826. 
Rhetoric,  1828. 

Essays  on  some  Difficulties  in  Paul,   1828. 
Essays  on  the  Errors  of  Romanism,  1830. 
The  Kingdom  of  Christ  Delineated,  1841. 
Thomas  Arnold,  1795 — 1842. 

The  Principles  of  Church  Reform,  1833. 
History  of  Rome,  1838—1843. 
Connop  Thirl  wall,  1797 — 1875. 

History  of  Greece,   1835—1847. 
Benjamin  Jowett,  1817 — 1893. 

Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  Galatians,  and  Romans,   1855. 
The  Dialogues  of  Plato,  1871. 
Arthur  Penrhyn  Stanley,  1815 — 1881. 
Life  of  Thomas  Arnold,  1844. 
Epistles  to  the  Corinthians,   1855. 
Sinai  and  Palestine,   1856. 

Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Church,   1861. 
Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Jewish  Church,   1863 — 1865. 
Richard  William  Church,   1815—1889. 
St  Anselm,  1870. 
Dante,  1879. 
Spenser,  1879. 
Bacon,   1884. 
The  Oxford  Movement,  1891. 


§  3.     The  Philosophers. 

William  Hamilton,  1788—1856. 

Discussions  on  Philosophy  and  Literature,  1852. 

Lectures  on  Metaphysics  and  Logic,  1859 — 1861. 
Henry  Longueville  Mansel,  1820 — 1871. 

Prolegomena  Logica,  1851. 

The  Limits  of  Religious  Thought,   1859. 

The  Philosophy  of  the  Conditioned,  1866. 
John  Stuart  Mill,  1806—1873. 

A  System  of  Logic,  1843. 

The  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  1848. 

On  Liberty,   1859. 

Representative  Government,  1861. 


38  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

Utilitarianism ,  1 863. 

Comte  and  Positivism,  1865. 

An  Examination  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  Philosophy,  1865. 

The  Subjection  of  Women,  1869. 

Autobiography,  1873. 
Henry  Sidgwick,  1838—1900. 

The  Methods  of  Ethics,  1874. 

The  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  1883. 

The  Elements  of  Politics,  1891. 
Harriet  Martineau,  1802—1876. 

Illustrations  of  Political  Economy,  1832 — 1834. 

Deerbrook,  1839. 

The  Positive  Philosophy  of  Auguste  Comte  freely  translated  and 
condensed,  1853. 

History  of  England  during  the  Thirty  Years'  Peace,  1849—1850. 
George  Henry  Lewes,  1817—1878. 

A  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy,  1845—1846. 

Comtek  Philosophy  of  the  Sciences,  1853. 
_^  Life  of  Goethe,  1855. 

Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,  1874—1879. 
Thomas  Hill  Green,  1836—1882. 

The   Works  of  Hume  (edited),  1874—1875. 

Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  1883. 
Edward  Caird,  1835—1908. 

A  Critical  Account  of  the  Philosophy  of  Kant,  1877. 

The  Evolution  of  Religion,  1893. 

The  Evolution  of  Theology  in  the  Greek  Philosophers,  1904. 
James  Martineau,  1805 — 1900. 

Rationale  of  Religious  Inquiry,  1836. 

Studies  of  Christianity,  1858. 

Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  1885. 

The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion,  1890. 
Francis  William  Newman,  1805 — 1897. 

Phases  of  Faith,  1850. 
Henry  Thomas  Buckle,  1821—1862. 

History  of  Civilization,  1857—1866. 
Henry  Sumner  Maine,  1822 — 1888. 

Ancient  Law,  1861. 
^^    Village  Communities,  1871. 

The  Early  History  of  Institutions,  1875. 

Popular  Government,  1885. 


CARLYLE  AND  THE  SYSTEMATIC  THINKERS  39 

Walter  Bagehot,  1826—1877. 

The  English  Constitution,  1865—1867. 
Physics  and  Politics •,  1872. 
Lombard  Street,  1873. 


§  4.     Science. 

Charles  Lyell,  1797 — 1875. 

Principles  of  Geology,  1830—1833. 

Geological  Evidences  of  the  Antiquity  of  Man,  1863. 
Hugh  Miller,  1802—1856. 

The  Old  Red  Sandstone,  1840. 

Footprints  of  the  Creator,  1849. 

My  Schools  and  Schoolmasters,   1854. 

The  Testimony  of  the  Rocks,  1857. 
Robert  Chambers,   1802—1871. 

Vestiges  of  the  Natural  History  of  Creation,  1 844. 
Herbert  Spencer,  1820 — 1903. 
"    Principles  of  Psychology,  1855. 

First  Principles,  1862. 

Principles  of  Biology,  1864 — 1867. 

Principles  of  Sociology,  1876 — 1896. 

Principles  of  Ethics,  1892 — 1893. 
Charles  Darwin,  1809-1882. 

Journal  of  Researches  during  the  Voyage  of  the  Beagle,  1839. 

The  Structure  and  Distribution  of  Coral  Reefs,  1842. 

The  Origin  of  Species,   1859. 

The  Descent  of  Man,  1871. 

The  Formation  of  Vegetable  Mould  through  the  Action  of  Worms, 

1881. 

Thomas  Henry  Huxley,  1825 — 1895. 
^-     Lay  Sermons,  1870. 

Hume,  1879. 


CHAPTER    II 

POETRY 

§  i.     Some  Pre-  Victorian  Poets 

PHILOSOPHERS  and  men  of  science  stand  upon  the 
outskirts  of  literature ;  the  poets  occupy  its  very  citadel, 
and  the  principal  function  of  a  book  of  criticism  is  to 
discuss  poetry.  The  Victorian  era  was  made  illustrious  by 
some  very  great  ones,  but  its  opening  was  comparatively 
unpromising,  and  we  have  first  to  discuss  some  who  must 
be  described  as  minor  poets.  They  filled  up  the  interval 
between  the  poets  of  the  revolutionary  period  and  the  rise 
of  the  great  luminaries  of  the  Victorian  era. 

Before  the  end  of  the  first  quarter  of  last  century  two 
unlettered  poets,  Ebenezer  Elliott  (1781 — 1849)  and  John 
Clare  (1793 — 1864),  had  begun  to  write.  Both  found  in 
Thomson's  Seasons  the  model  for  their  early  work,  and 
both  drew  from  nature  their  first  inspiration.  The  picture 
of  a  primrose  in  a  book  of  botany  awoke  Elliott  to  the 
beauties  of  nature,  and  the  rhymes  of  a  poor  old  woman 
with  a  memory  stocked  with  verse  helped  to  develop  the 
poetic  taste  of  Clare. 

Ebenezer  Elliott  wrote  his  first  poem,  A  Vernal  Walk, 
at  the  age  of  seventeen.  The  impulse  called  the  return  to 
nature,  a  phase  of  the  romance  movement,  which  at  this 
time  inspired  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  to  write  their 


SOME    PRE-VICTORIAN    POETS  41 

Lyrical  Ballads,  had  touched  the  young  iron-worker  Elliott 
as  well.  But  he  had,  as  he  claims,  "a  hand  to  do  and 
a  head  to  plan,"  and,  without  losing  his  love  of  nature,  he 
was  deeply  interested  in  the  industrial  problems  of  his 
time  and  in  the  struggle  of  the  democracy  for  political 
and  social  recognition.  England  was  impoverished  and 
exhausted  by  the  long  wars  with  Napoleon.  Bread  was 
exceedingly  dear,  and  the  poor  had  little  money  to  pay 
for  it.  To  Elliott  the  tax  upon  this  necessary  seemed  the 
extreme  of  the  tyranny  of  wealth,  and,  keenly  sensitive  to 
the  misery  around  him,  he  devoted  himself  to  the  task  of 
reform.  In  his  eyes  the  landowners  alone  were  the 
oppressors :  against  them  as  the  common  foe  he  saw  him- 
self, the  iron-master,  ranged  side  by  side  with  his  workmen. 
To  every  other  evil  of  the  industrial  system  he  was  blind. \^ 
There  is  no  hint  in  his  verse  of  that  conflict  between  master  )' 
and  man  which  is  so  familiar  in  the  present  day.  And  yet 
the  struggle  against  the  introduction  of  machinery  had 
shown  before  Elliott's  day  how  bitter,  under  the  wages 
system,  may  be  the  strife  between  capital  and  labour.  It 
was  in  this  state  of  mind — wide  awake  to  one  phase  of 
the  problem  and  utterly  blind  to  the  other — that  Elliott 
became  the  lyrist  of  the  cause  of  labour.  Fierce  anger 
against  the  wrongdoer  and  deep  pity  for  the  wronged 
inspired  his  masterpiece,  "  Day,  like  our  souls,  is  fiercely 
dark."  Elliott's  Corn-law  Rhymes  attracted  the  attention 
of  Carlyle,  who  likens  the  poet's  work  to  "  lines  of  joy  and 
harmony  wrought  out  of  troublous  tears." 

John  Clare,  the  contemporary  of  Elliott,  had  a  life  full 
of  sadness.  At  seven  he  had  to  earn  his  daily  bread,  and 
a  little  later  out  of  his  scanty  earnings  he  paid  the  fees  for 
his  education  at  a  night  school.  Soon  he  began  to  write, 
and  all  the  odd  scraps  of  paper  which  came  his  way  were 
filled  with  verses.  His  mother  found  them  and,  indignant 
at  this  waste  of  time,  used  them  to  light  her  fire.  At  a 


42  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

lime  kiln,  where  he  found  temporary  employment,  the 
master  suspected  that  he  neglected  his  work  in  order  to 
write,  and  dismissed  him.  But  the  poetry  which  his  own 
people  despised  drew  at  last  the  attention  of  men  who 
understood  its  value,  and  in  1820  Poems,  descriptive  of 
Rural  Life  appeared.  Southey,  one  of  the  Lake  Poets,  as 
they  were  called,  spoke  well  of  the  work  in  The  Quarterly 
Review.  The  peasant  poet  was  taken  to  London,  and 
fortune  seemed  about  to  smile  upon  him.  A  subscription 
was  raised  and  £45  a  year  secured  to  him  for  life.  He 
made  his  home  in  his  native  county  of  Northampton.  But 
Clare  was  destined  neither  to  be  happy  nor  to  remain  fit  to 
do  his  work.  He  drank  too  much,  and  his  mind  gave  way, 
though  probably  not  because  of  the  drink.  The  last  twenty- 
two  years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  an  asylum ;  but,  strange 
to  tell,  these  were  the  years  in  which  he  did  his  finest  work. 
Then,  in  particular,  he  wrote  a  lyric  which  his  biographer, 
Martin,  rightly  calls  "  a  sublime  burst  of  poetry  "  : 

"I  am,  yet  what  I  am  none  cares  or  knows." 

This  lyric  by  the  poor  lunatic  is  not  only  poetically 
the  finest,  but  intellectually  the  strongest  of  all  Clare's 
writings.  "There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
than  are  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy." 

There  is  much  in  the  literature  of  the  earlier  part  of  the 
Victorian  era  that  bears  witness  how  wide  and  how  deep 
was  the  sense  of  the  suffering  and  of  the  evils  on  which 
Elliott  looked.  The  evidence  may  be  found  in  prose  and 
in  poetry ;  in  the  grave  works  of  Carlyle  and  Maurice,  in 
the  novels  of  Dickens,  of  Charles  Kingsley,  and  of  Mrs  Gas- 
kell.  Mrs  Browning's  heart-rending  Cry  of  the  Children  is 
a  wail  of  innocent  weakness  in  the  grasp  of  overwhelming 
strength.  The  same  sentiment  inspires  two  notable  poems 
of  Thomas  Hood  (1799 — 1845),  the  most  gifted  poet  between 
Shelley  and  Keats  on  the  one  hand  and  Tennyson  and 


SOME   PRE-VICTORIAN    POETS  43 

Browning  on  the  other.  Hood  started  life  as  an  engineer, 
but  after  a  short  apprenticeship  to  the  trade  his  delicate 
health  compelled  him  to  seek  work  which  gave  him  more 
rest.  He  ended  by  becoming  at  twenty-two  sub-editor  to 
The  London  Magazine,  the  periodical  in  which  the  essays  / 
of  Charles  Lamb  and  De  Quincey's  English  Opium-Eater 
appeared.  Hood  never  enjoyed  affluence,  and  when  he 
was  thirty-five  he  lost  practically  everything  through  the 
failure  of  a  firm  in  which  he  was  interested.  Hoping  to 
pay  off  his  debts  by  living  economically  abroad,  he  crossed 
to  Holland ;  but  the  passage  was  so  rough  that  he  never 
recovered  from  the  effects  of  it.  The  rest  of  his  life  was 
a  struggle  with  poverty  and  disease.  Sir  Robert  Peel 
gave  him  a  pension  of  £100,  which  he  only  lived  to 
enjoy  for  one  year.  In  spite  of  ill-health  and  poverty 
Hood  managed  to  be  gay.  In  his  kitchen  he  enjoyed 
playing  pranks  upon  his  wife,  exciting  her  anxieties  by 
declaring  that  the  red  and  yellow  spots  on  the  plaice  she 
was  cooking  for  dinner  indicated  decomposition  and  made 
it  dangerous  for  the  family  to  eat.  It  would  however  be 
a  mistake  to  regard  Hood  as  merely  a  jester.  He  was 
essentially  serious,  but  he  had  to  live,  and  he  found  it  best 
to  be  "  a  lively  Hood  for  a  livelihood." 

Hood  had,  as  the  great  man  usually  has,  the  capacity 
to  develop.  There  are  beautiful  pieces — for  example, 
Ruth — to  be  found  among  his  early  poems.  But  for  his 
greatest  work  we  must  look  onwards  to  the  end.  Perhaps 
the  most  poetical  of  all  his  writings  is  The  Haunted  House,  a 
piece  hardly  surpassed  in  respect  of  success  in  producing  the 
effect  which  the  author  wishes  to  produce.  This  and  the 
two  great  poems  dedicated  to  social  problems,  The  Bridge  of 
Sighs  and  The  Song  of  the  Skirt,  are  Hood's  surest  title  to 
fame.  With  a  sound  instinct  he  directed  that  the  words 
"  He  sang  the  Song  of  the  Shirt "  should  be  engraved  on  his 
tombstone ;  and  Thackeray,  referring  to  the  fact  that  The 


44  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

Bridge  of  Sighs  was  published  just  before  the  poet's  death, 
wrote  that  this  was  "his  Corunna,  his  Heights  of  Abraham- 
sick,  weak,  wounded,  he  fell  in  the  full  blaze  of  that  great 
victory." 

Very  different  from  Hood  was  his  contemporary,  the 
irresponsible  Hartley  Coleridge  (1796—1849).  He  had 
more  affinity  to  the  madhouse  poet  Clare.  Hartley  was 
the  son  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  and  along  with  the 
genius  of  his  father  he  inherited  the  weakness  of  his 
father's  character.  Hartley  was  cradled  in  beauty  and 
poetry,  but  no  effort  was  made  to  give  him  self-control  or 
will-power.  This  want  of  discipline  led  to  the  excesses  in 
drink  which  deprived  him  of  his  fellowship  at  Oriel  College, 
Oxford,  and  left  him  to  end  his  days  "  wandering  like  a 
breeze "  among  the  Cumberland  lakes.  "  Lil'  Hartley  o' 
the  Nab  "  the  villagers  called  him,  and  they  believed  him 
to  be  a  much  greater  writer  than  Wordsworth,  who  lived 
close  by  him  at  Rydal  Mount.  Hartley  never  grew  up. 
In  his  own  language  he  was  still  a  child  even  when  he  was 
old.  His  genius  was  great,  but  the  weakness  of  his  nature 
made  any  long  and  serious  work  impossible.  In  his 
sonnets  we  have  however  some  exquisite  poetry,  and  in  his 
4  Biographia  Borealis  some  delightful  reading. 

There  flourished  during  the  same  years  a  number  of 
writers  of  religious  verse  who  must  be  noticed.  Yet 
the  notice  must  be  brief,  for,  though  the  spirit  of  our 
highest  poetry  is  essentially  religious,  in  our  religious  verse 
we  do  not  find  the  highest  poetry.  The  Hebrews  knew 
how  to  write  poetic  psalms  and  hymns,  but  this  gift  has 
been  denied  to  modern  nations.  James  Montgomery 
(1771 — 1854),  Reginald  Heber  (1783 — 1826)  and  John 
Keble  are  names  which  stand  out  among  those  of  the 
hymn  writers  of  this  period.  Montgomery  has  given 
us  the  familiar  Hail  to  the  Lord's  Anointed  and  For 
ever  with  the  Lord.  In  his  numerous  volumes  of  verse 


SOME    PRE-VICTORIAN    POETS  45 

there  are  some  grains  of  gold,  but  no  work  of  the  highest 
order.  He  is  chiefly  interesting  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
spirit  of  the  free  churches,  and  takes  his  place  here  in 
contrast  with  John  Keble,  who  did  for  the  English  Church 
party  what  Montgomery  did  for  the  Nonconformists. 
Heber  stands  between  these  two,  and  has  further  interest 
for  us  because  of  his  slight  contact  with  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
Heber  met  Scott  in  Oxford  in  1803,  when  he  had  just  won 
the  prize  for  his  poem  Palestine.  He  read  it  to  Scott,  and 
at  Scott's  suggestion  the  famous  lines  describing  the  silent 
rise  of  Solomon's  temple  were  added — "No  hammer  fell,  no 
ponderous  axes  rung."  Though  the  literary  promise  which 
Scott  detected  in  the  young  man  was  never  realised  Heber 
is  one  of  the  best  of  modern  hymnologists.  But  the  main 
stream  of  religious  verse  at  this  period  ran  in  the  channel 
of  the  Oxford  Movement,  and  in  some  ways  the  most 
important  contributor  to  it  was  John  Keble.  Though  his 
Lyra  Innocentium  has  greater  poetry,  his  Christian  Year  is, 
as  has  already  been  said,  the  book  by  which  Keble  will 
be  best  remembered.  It  is  written  to  fit  the  fasts  and  > 
festivals  of  the  prayer-book,  and  the  author's  muse  is 
hampered  by  the  restrictions  of  the  plan.  On  the  other 
hand,  this  plan  has  added  to  its  attractions  for  the  devout 
reader  and  accounts  for  no  small  part  of  its  popularity. 
Wordsworth  criticised  the  volume  in  characteristic  manner  : 
"  It  is  very  good,"  he  said,  "  so  good,  that,  if  it  were  mine, 
I  would  write  it  all  over  again." 

There  remain  in  the  period  under  consideration  a 
number  of  writers  who,  while  differing  widely  in  many 
things,  are  bound  together  by  a  common  interest  in  the 
drama.  But  they  produced  no  great  dramas,  because  the 
requisite  qualities  were  not  united  in  any  one  man. 
Beddoes  had  plenty  of  poetry  and  Sheridan  Knowles  had 
technical  skill ;  but  it  would  have  required  the  union  of  the 
two  to  produce  a  great  dramatist. 


46  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

James  Sheridan  Knowles  (1784 — 1862)  was  trained  to 
the  medical  profession,  but  he  deserted  it  in  1809  and 
became  an  actor.  He  had  great  facility  in  the  construction 
of  plots,  and  could  sustain  the  interest  until  the  denouement. 
But  he  had  no  poetry,  no  conception  of  Wordsworth's 
"  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land."  This  lack  of  poetry 
was  fatal  to  him  in  tragedy.  By  a  happy  chance  however 
in  the  middle  of  his  life  he  turned  to  comedy,  and  The 
Beggars  Daughter  of  Bethnal  Green,  The  Hunchback,  The 
Love  Chase  and  Old  Maids  are  good  examples  of  his  work. 

Of  Knowles's  contemporaries  who  wrote  plays,  several 
are  now  remembered  for  work  of  a  different  sort.  In  the 
case  of  Henry  Hart  Milman,  the  fame  of  the  historian 
overshadows  that  of  the  dramatist;  and  though  Mary 
Russell  Mitford  valued  herself  mainly  as  a  tragedian  and 
was  thought  to  stand  in  the  first  rank,  we  remember  her  now 
only  as  the  author  of  the  exquisite  sketches  in  Our  Village. 
The  name  of  James  Robinson  Planche*  would  hardly 
deserve  mention  for  the  sake  of  his  comedies  and  burlesques; 
but  the  reformer  of  the  costume  of  the  stage  should  not  be 
wholly  forgotten.  It  was  he  who  substituted  for  the  former 
haphazard  style  of  dress  a  studied  attempt  to  represent 
upon  the  stage  the  garb  of  the  time  in  which  the  action 
of  the  play  is  laid.  It  was  on  the  revival  of  King  John  in 
1823  that  the  effect  of  his  reform  was  first  seen. 

But  comparatively  barren  of  drama  as  the  period  is, 
there  are  a  few  writers  who  are  dramatists  or  nothing,  and 
a  few  others  whose  dramatic  work  cannot  be  ignored.  Sir 
Aubrey  de  Vere  (1788 — 1846)  is  memorable  for  his  fine 
tragedy,  Mary  Tudor,  which  was  ranked  by  Gladstone  next 
to  Shakespeare,  and  is  good  enough  to  afford  at  least 
some  justification  even  for  that  emphatic  praise.  For 
distinct  and  sometimes  subtle  characterisation  and  for 
excellence  of  plot,  Mary  Tudor  is  among  the  best  of  the 
small  group  of  poetical  dramas  of  the  Victorian  period.  It 


SOME    PRE-VICTORIAN    POETS  47 

was  written  in  the  last  year  of  De  Vere's  life  and  was  pub- 
lished posthumously.  But  the  author  was  a  contemporary  of 
Byron  at  Harrow,  and  two  earlier  and  less  excellent  dramas 
give  him  a  place  among  the  writers  now  under  discussion. 
His  association  with  Byron  renders  all  the  more  remarkable 
De  Vere's  complete  freedom  from  the  dominant  influence 
of  his  early  manhood.  He  was  rather  a  Wordsworthian 
than  a  follower  of  Byron. 

In  his  aloofness  from  Byron  De  Vere  resembles  Henry, 
afterwards  Sir  Henry,  Taylor  (1800 — 1886),  who  may  be 
regarded  as  the  leading  representative  at  this  period  of 
what  may  be  called  the  intellectual  drama.  Taylor's  best, 
as  well  as  his  best-known,  work  is  Philip  van  Artevelde, 
a  play  which  is  interesting  not  only  for  its  intrinsic  merit, 
but  as  a  studied  and  deliberate  embodiment  of  a  theory. 
Taylor  held  that  poetry  had  been  tempted  by  Byron  into 
the  indulgence  of  sensation  at  the  expense  of  intellect,  and 
that  the  evil  had  been  intensified  in  proportion  as  Byron's 
followers  were  weaker  than  and  inferior  to  Byron  himself. 
Taylor  therefore  proposed  to  himself  to  re-embody  in 
poetry  what  he  called  its  intellectual  and  immortal  part,  its 
philosophy.  The  design  was  admirable,  but  Taylor  was 
not  quite  great  enough  to  execute  it  with  success.  He 
himself  underrated,  if  he  did  not  forget,  another  element  in 
poetry — that  which  is  called  "  inspiration."  His  characters 
are  constructed  rather  than  created. 

If  however  success  be  the  test  of  merit,  the  dramatist 
of  the  period  is  not  any  of  those  who  have  been  named, 
but  Bulwer  Lytton.  He  will  fall  to  be  considered  more 
fully  as  a  novelist,  but  the  author  of  two  of  the  very  small 
number  of  plays  which  have  kept  the  stage  from  that  day 
to  this  cannot  be  ignored  as  a  dramatist.  His  Lady  of 
Lyons  was  written  in  two  weeks  for  the  actor  Macready, 
and  became  a  dazzling  success.  The  plot  is  absurd,  and 
the  hero,  Claude  Melnotte,  incredibly  silly.  Richelieu  was, 


48  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

and  still  is,  almost  equally  popular.  The  author  of  these 
plays  has  a  fascinating  though  grandiloquent  manner, 
which  harmonises  with  the  glare  of  the  footlights.  His 
taste  is  false,  his  sentiment  is  false,  and  his  characters  are 
artificial ;  yet,  notwithstanding  all  this,  his  plays  have  that 
something  which  makes  them  go.  It  is  more  surprising 
that  he  shows  a  true  lyrical  gift,  and  that  what  in  him  is 
meretricious  is  less  offensive  in  his  lyrics  than  it  is  in  his 
dramas. 

In  strong  contrast  to  Taylor  as  well  as  to  Lytton  stands 
the  group  of  men  who  may  be  called  poets  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan revival.  The  greatest  of  these  was  Thomas  Lovell 
Beddoes  ( 1 803 —  1 849).  He  has  been  called  a  Gothic  Keats, 
but  there  is  in  his  poetry  a  note  of  Shelley  as  well  as 
a  strain  of  Keats.  More  remarkable  than  either  is  his 
similarity  in  tone  to  the  Elizabethans.  This  was  probably 
due  to  natural  kinship  rather  than  to  conscious  imitation  ; 
for  Beddoes  had  no  faith  in  imitation  or  in  revivals  of  any 
sort.  While  he  was  an  undergraduate  at  Oxford  his  first 
literary  ventures,  The  Improvisatore  and  The  Brides  Tragedy, 
appeared.  He  meant  to  make  literature  his  profession, 
and  four  years  later  he  announced  to  his  friend  Kelsall  the 
completion  of  "a  very  Gothic-styled  tragedy"  called  Death's 
Jest-Book.  But  after  the  two  former  early  works  only  one 
or  two  short  poems  were  published  during  his  lifetime. 
He  recognised  that  he  would  never  be  a  popular  dramatist, 
and  suddenly  resolved  to  abandon  literature  in  favour  of 
medicine,  the  profession  of  his  father.  This  resolution  led 
to  his  residence  abroad,  and  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life 
either  in  Germany  or  in  Switzerland.  He  ultimately  died 
by  his  own  hand  in  the  hospital  at  Basle.  His  blank 
verse  can  be  noble  and  his  lyrics  beautiful,  but  his  plays 
can  never  be  acted  because  they  are  utterly  chaotic. 


TENNYSON  49 


§  2.     Tennyson 

Tennyson  has  put  on  record  his  feeling  of  irreparable 
loss  on  the  death  of  Byron,  and  the  Carlyles  were  affected 
almost  as  deeply.  Some  ten  years  later  Wordsworth  in 
a  well-known  poem  lamented  the  death  of  one  after 
another  of  the  giants  of  the  past  generation.  Such  utter- 
ances show  us  what  was  the  view  taken  by  men  on  the 
verge  of  the  Victorian  period  as  to  the  state  of  literature 
in  their  day.  To  them  it  seemed  a  time  destitute  of  genius. 
The  writers  who  have  just  been  discussed  were  not  the 
equals  of  the  giants  of  the  past,  and  no  contemporary  could 
be  sure  that  among  living  men  there  was  any  equal  to  them. 
But  when  we  look  back  we  can  see  that,  among  the  poets, 
two  of  the  younger  men  were  quite  worthy  to  be  set  beside 
the  great  men  of  the  revolutionary  period.  The  two  in 
question  were,  of  course,  Tennyson  and  Browning. 

Alfred  Tennyson  (1809 — 1892)  was  the  third  son  of  the 
rector  of  Somersby  in  Lincolnshire,  and  his  father  was  the 
son  of  the  vicar  of  the  neighbouring  parish  of  Louth.  In 
his  childhood  Tennyson  was  shy,  retiring,  imaginative,  but 
neither  an  entertaining  nor  an  attractive  boy.  Lady  Ritchie, 
the  daughter  of  Thackeray,  tells  a  story  of  him  at  five  years 
old  playing  in  the  vicarage  garden.  The  wind  caught  his 
pinafore  and  whirled  him  along,  and  helpless,  breathless,  he 
shouted  out,  "  I  hear  a  voice  that's  speaking  in  the  wind." 
Those  nine  words  must  have  been  his  first  line  of  poetry. 
His  next  verses  took  the  form  of  an  elegy  written  upon  the 
death  of  his  grandmother.  His  grandfather  paid  him  ten 
shillings  for  the  poem,  adding,  "that  is  the  first  money,  my 
boy,  that  you  have  made  by  poetry, — and  take  my  word, 
it  will  be  the  last."  The  next  earnings  came  through 
a  Louth  publisher,  who  offered  ten  pounds  for  a  collection 
of  one  hundred  and  two  poems  published  under  the  name 
w.  4 


50  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

of  Poems  by  Two  Brothers.  The  authors  were  really  three 
in  number,  as  both  his  two  elder  brothers,  Frederick  and 
Charles  Tennyson,  joined  with  Alfred  in  this  early  venture. 
They  spent  the  money  in  making  a  tour  through  Lincoln- 
shire to  examine  the  beautiful  architecture  of  its  old 
churches. 

The  Tennysons'  home  was  in  the  midst  of  the  most 
peaceful  English  scenery,  where  the  family  of  eight  sons 
and  four  daughters,  with  their  parents,  made  a  society 
in  itself.  Tennyson  may  have  had  Somersby  rectory  in 
his  mind  when  he  speaks  of  the  "English  home"  in  The 
J  Palace  of  A  rt  as  "  a  haunt  of  ancient  Peace."  The  seclusion 
of  the  place  was  so  profound  that  even  the  news  of  the  battle 
of  Waterloo  took  long  to  reach  it.  This  retirement,  and  the 
fact  that  the  Tennysons  were  educated  at  home,  helps  to 
explain  the  almost  gruff  reserve  which  through  life  marked 
the  shy  manners  of  the  poet.  Their  father  prepared  his 
sons  for  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  He  must  have  been 
remarkable  in  his  way,  but  the  impression  he  produced  on 
the  mind  of  his  old  housekeeper  was  merely  that  of  a  man 
"  glowering  "  in  his  study,  the  walls  of  which  were  covered 
"  wi'  'eathen  gods  and  goddesses  wi'out  cloas."  Alfred  in 
those  days  was  best  known  as  the  champion  athlete  who 
came  down  to  the  village  green  and  beat  the  rustic  com- 
petitors in  their  own  games. 

His  removal  from  these  early  surroundings  took  place 
in  1828,  when  he  matriculated  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 
He  found  his  two  elder  brothers  already  established  there. 
At  first  he  was  too  shy  to  participate  in  College  society; 
but  a  few  months  served  to  break  the  barriers  down,  his 
genius  was  discovered,  and  he  became  part  of  a  group  of 
youthful  enthusiasts  who  have  come  down  in  history  as 
"The  Apostles"  of  Cambridge.  They  chose  this  name 
because  there  were  twelve  of  them.  Among  them  were 
Richard  Monckton  Milnes,  afterwards  Lord  Houghton, 


TENNYSON  51 

Trench,  who  became  an  archbishop,  F.  D.  Maurice,  and 
Arthur  Henry  Hallam,  whom  Tennyson  in  In  Memoriam 
describes  as  "  the  master  bowman  of  the  group."  This 
acquaintance  with  Hallam  ripened  into  a  friendship  as 
warm  as  the  love  between  David  and  Jonathan.  Tennyson 
says,  "  Arthur  Hallam  was  as  near  perfection  as  mortal 
could  be,  and  his  was  such  a  lovely  nature  that  he  had 
nothing  to  learn  from  life."  He  became  betrothed  to 
Emily,  the  sister  of  his  friend,  and  his  early  death  at 
twenty-two  was  almost  as  heavy  a  blow  to  her  brother  as 
to  her.  Hallam  left  little  writing  to  indicate  the  greatness 
of  his  powers,  he  had  not  time  in  his  short  life,  but  his 
influence  over  Tennyson  was  far-reaching.  After  his  death 
the  whole  tone  of  Tennyson's  poetry  changed.  He  has  the 
same  exquisite  touch,  but  the  playful  frivolities  disappear, 
and  he  seems  full  of  serious  purpose  in  all  he  writes. 

Two  years  before  the  death  of  Hallam  the  discipline 
of  sorrow  had  begun  for  Tennyson.  The  old  home  at 
Somersby  was  broken  up  by  the  death  of  his  father  in  1831. 
Alfred  had  left  college  without  taking  a  degree,  and  his 
prospects  of  earning  a  living  at  this  time  were  so  poor  that 
his  engagement  with  Emily  Sellwood  had  to  be  broken 
off.  After  this  separation  the  lovers  did  not  meet  for  ten 
years,  when  the  success  of  In  Memoriam  made  it  possible 
for  the  poet  to  offer  her  a  home.  Tennyson's  marriage 
was  soon  followed  by  his  appointment  to  the  office  of 
laureate.  He  was  formally  installed  as  the  successor 
of  Wordsworth  in  1850.  He  dressed  for  the  ceremony 
at  the  house  of  Samuel  Rogers  and  borrowed  the  velvet 
court  dress  and  sword  of  his  host.  It  is  curious  that 
his  predecessor,  Wordsworth,  had  dressed  at  the  same 
house  and  had  borrowed  the  same  garb.  After  these  two 
events  the  history  of  Tennyson's  life  is  marked  only  by  the 
publication  of  his  works.  There  are  occasional  visits  to 
London ;  but  in  his  later  years  his  time  was  chiefly  spent 

4—2 


52  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

in  his  two  country  houses,  one  at  Freshwater  in  the  Isle  of 
Wight,  and  the  other  in  the  beautiful  Surrey  scenery  of 
Haslemere. 

>/  In  1842  Tennyson  published  Poems  in  two  volumes. 
One  volume  was  filled  almost  entirely  with  pieces  which 
had  appeared  in  the  Poems  of  1830  and  1832,  but  the 
second  contained  only  two  poems  which  were  not  new. 
This  second  volume  marked  a  great  development.  Many 
of  the  best  of  his  shorter  poems  are  here,  and  it  is  in  his 

*  shorter  poems  that  Tennyson  excels.  No  one  ever  studied 
more  carefully  the  art  of  writing  them.  "  Every  short 
poem,"  he  says,  "should  have  a  definite  shape,  like  the 
curve,  sometimes  a  single,  sometimes  a  double  one,  assumed 
by  a  severed  tress,  or  the  rind  of  an  apple  when  flung  upon 
the  floor."  In  this  collection,  at  which  he  had  worked  for 
^riine  years,  we  find  the  Arthurian  poems  of  Sir  Galahad, 
Sir  Launcelot,  Queen  Guinevere  and  Morte  cT Arthur.  It 
contains  also  the  classical  idyll  of  Ulysses,  The  Two  Voices, 
The  Vision  of  Sin,  The  Palace  of  Art,  Locksley  Hall,  The 
Lotos  Eaters,  St  Agnes'  Eve  and  the  exquisite  song  Break, 
break,  break.  There  are,  in  fact,  specimens  of  nearly  every 
kind  of  verse  except  the  dramatic,  and  of  these  not  a 
few  are  among  the  finest  things  in  the  whole  range  of 
Tennyson's  work.  His  friend  Edward  FitzGerald  thought 
that  he  never  afterwards  rose  so  high. 

The  Princess  followed  the  Poems  of  1842.  It  has  won 
its  way  into  English  hearts  by  its  six  beautiful  songs,  but, 
as  a  whole,  it  is  somewhat  of  a  failure.  It  hovers  midway 
between  jest  and  earnest.  From  the  many  changes  which 
were  afterwards  made  in  it,  we  may  conclude  that  Tennyson 

»  himself  was  not  satisfied.  Its  subject  is  the  emancipation 
of  women.  But  there  was  no  place  in  Tennyson's  world 
for  the  advanced  modern  woman.  The  sweet  girl-graduates, 
whom  he  describes  as  pursuing  learning  in  the  retired 
atmosphere  of  a  convent-like  college,  are  no  new  creations 


TENNYSON  53 

of  his  pen.  They  are  merely  the  Madelines,  Rosalinds,  and 
Marianas  of  his  youthful  poems,  led,  in  Tennyson's  eyes, 
astray  by  the  new  learning.  The  poet  feels  that  their 
venture  into  the  halls  of  science  is  all  a  mistake,  and 
that  marriage  ought  to  be  their  final  goal. 

During  the  years  after  1833  Tennyson  read  deeply  and 
widely,  and  his  poems  bear  witness  to  his  careful  study  of 
the  literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome,  as  well  as  those  of  the 
modern  languages.  His  familiarity  with  science  is  attested/ 
by  Norman  Lockyer,  who  declared  Tennyson's  mind  to  be 
"saturated  with  astronomy";  while  Huxley  called  him  "the 
first  poet  since  Lucretius  who  has  understood  the  drift  of 
science."  He  conceived  it  to  be  his  mission  to  give  in  his 
In  Memoriam  a  poetic  version  of  the  problems  in  thought 
and  in  religion  which  the  recent  discoveries  of  science  had 
thrust  upon  the  minds  of  men  and  women.  Devout  souls 
have  found  guidance  in  Tennyson's  philosophy  of  life  in 
this  poem,  and  its  words  of  hope  and  sympathy  have  restored 
peace  and  comfort  to  minds  that  felt  that  their  faith  had 
been  cut  away  by  science.  It  became  extremely  popular. 
It  appealed  to  every  one.  The  man  of  science  was  gratified 
to  find  that  his  point  of  view  was  understood,  while  the 
anxious  Christian,  filled  with  fears  and  doubts,  recognised 
many  of  his  own  difficulties  powerfully  and  beautifully 
expressed,  and  was  cheered  by  the  voice  of  hope  in  the  last 
lines  and  the  expression  of  faith  that  "somehow  good  will 
be  the  final  goal  of  ill."  The  stanza  of  In  Memoriam  was  ^ 
used  by  Ben  Jonson,  but  Tennyson  practically  discovered 
it  over  again  and  made  it  one  of  the  best-known  of  English 
stanzas.  Few  poems  have  been  more  quoted  than  In 
Memoriam.  It  is  full  of  "jewels  five  words  long,"  and  the 
literary  allusions,  reminiscences  and  turns  of  phrase  give 
it  a  rare  power  of  attraction. 

The  choice  of  Tennyson   for   the  laureateship  was  a 
happy  one.     He  has  rarely  been   excelled  in  the  art  of 


54  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

writing  verses  to  celebrate  national  events.  The  death 
of  the  great  Duke  of  Wellington  gave  him  the  first  oppor- 
tunity, and  the  Ode  which  he  wrote  on  this  occasion 

vis  one  of  the  noblest  utterances  of  patriotism  in  verse.  The 
Crimean  war  drew  from  him  the  stirring  Charge  of  the 
Light  Brigade,  to  be  followed  thirty  years  later  by  a  far 
more  skilful  piece  on  a  cognate  theme,  The  Charge  of  the 
Heavy  Brigade.  The  later  and  more  beautiful  poem  has 
never  been  able  to  move  the  first  from  its  place  as  popular 
favourite.  So  too  the  earlier  Locksley  Hall  still  holds  the 
field,  though  Locksley  Hall  Sixty  Years  After  is  a  weightier 
and  more  thoughtful  poem.  The  one  expresses  the  feelings 
of  a  youthful  dreamer,  the  other  the  ripe  experience  of  a 
great  mind. 

Through  all  these  years  Tennyson  had  been  trying  to 
write  upon  the  old  legends  of  King  Arthur  and  his  Round 
Table.  The  subject  was  not  new.  Milton  had  thought  of 
it  for  the  great  work  which  was  to  justify  his  devoting  his 
life  to  poetry,  Spenser  at  an  earlier  date  had  made  use  of 
the  legends,  and  Lytton  had  written  an  epic  poem  on 
Arthur.  Indeed  the  Arthurian  romances  had  captivated 
the  imaginative  minds  of  England,  France  and  Germany, 
from  the  middle  ages  downwards.  But  it  was  reserved 
for  Tennyson  to  gather  the  twelve  new-old  tales  into  one 
collection  and  to  send  them  into  the  world  as  The  Idylls 
of  the  King. 

At  an  early  date  Tennyson  wrote  out  prose  sketches 
of  the  legends,  but  the  first  story  to  appear  in  verse  was 

~*-Morte  d>  Arthur.  FitzGerald  heard  this  poem  read  in  1835. 
It  showed  already  a  skill  in  the  difficult  measure  of  blank 
verse  which  Tennyson  never  afterwards  surpassed.  Except 
this  no  Idylls  appeared  for  more  than  twenty  years.  But 
the  poet  had  not  laid  the  subject  aside.  In  1859  Enid, 
Vivien,  Elaine  and  Guinevere  were  published.  Then  there 
was  another  pause  of  ten  years  before  the  appearance  of 


TENNYSON  55 

The  Holy  Grail  and  other  Poems.  Among  the  other  poems 
were  The  Coming  of  Arthur,  Pelleas  and  Ettarre  and  The 
Passing  of  Arthur,  as  Morte  d' Arthur  is  now  called.  In 
1871  appeared  The  Last  Tournament,  in  1872  Gareth  and 
Lynette,  and  then,  after  a  long  interval,  the  centre  of  the 
group  is  reached  in  Balin  and  Balan,  which  came  in  1885. 
There  is  thus  no  real  unity  in  The  Idylls  of  the  King. 
Tennyson  begins  at  the  end  of  the  tale,  arrives  at  the 
beginning  midway,  and  closes  with  the  central  episode. 
The  twelve  legends  circle  round  the  godlike  Arthur,  "  the 
blameless  King,"  a  piece  of  colourless  perfection  who  is 
rather  a  nineteenth  century  hero  than  a  mediaeval  knight. 
He  is  modern,  although  his  history  is  ancient.  Tennyson 
had  little  sympathy  with,  or  understanding  of,  the  far-away  - 
ages.  He  derived  the  knowledge  required  for  these  poems 
from  the  translation  of  the  Mabinogion  by  Lady  Charlotte 
Guest,  and  from  Malory's  Morte  a" Arthur.  He  borrowed 
much  from  these  sources.  For  this  he  has  been  censured, 
but  the  blame  is  not  just.  These  great  stories  of  romance, 
handed  down  from  early  times,  are  the  poetical  inheritance 
of  the  world,  they  have  a  different  message  for  each  genera- 
tion, and  it  is  the  privilege  of  new  poets  to  express  the 
message  in  the  language  of  their  times.  The  newcomer 
who  prefers  to  invent  rather  than  use  the  material  that 
has  come  down  to  him  may  find  that  he  has  done 
himself  a  great  wrong.  Shakespeare  acted  on  the  same 
principle  as  Tennyson,  and  so  did  the  great  Greek 
tragedians. 

The  greatest  flaw  in  The  Idylls  of  the  King  is  the 
unreality  which  clings  to  all  the  characters.  Launcelot  is 
interesting  because  of  his  human  frailties,  but,  as  a  knight, 
even  he  is  "  faultily  faultless."  Vivien,  the  most  degraded 
character,  is  a  dull  evil-doer  when  we  compare  her  fascina- 
tions with  the  unprincipled  witchery  of  Cleopatra,  or  the 
cleverness  of  Becky  Sharp.  The  story  most  typical  of 


56  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

the  age  of  Arthur  is  The  Quest  of  the  Grail.  It  is  an 
allegory,  but  Tennyson  interprets  it  in  a  manner  which  is 
highly  significant  and  altogether  his  own.  To  the  mediaeval 

N^inventor  of  the  story,  holiness  was  an  absolute  good,  and 
evil  could  not  come  out  of  it.  Tennyson  makes  the  quest 
of  the  Grail  a  means  towards  the  break-up  of  the  Round 
Table.  He  felt  that  the  quest  after  heaven  which  it 
describes,  the  withdrawal  of  man  from  life  and  its  ordinary 
duties  and  his  consecration  to  holiness,  might  be  good  for 
the  Sir  Galahads,  but  was  a  mere  misleading  Will-o'-the- 
wisp  to  the  ordinary  man,  stained  and  spotted,  yet  capable 
of  work  useful  to  the  world.  He  had  no  belief  in  pure 
saintliness  for  the  average  man.  He  felt  that  a  man  must 
be  measured  not  by  the  absence  of  evil  and  wrong-doing, 
but  by  the  presence  of  good.  Seeing  that  he  had  this 
manly  conception  before  his  eyes,  it  is  difficult  to  pardon 
the  colourless  perfection  of  King  Arthur,  or  to  put  much 
1  faith  in  his  efforts  to  right  the  wrong. 

There  is  no  trace  of  the  dramatic  gift  in  The  Idylls  of 
the  King;  that  gift  is  singularly  wanting  in  all  Tennyson's 
early  work ;  and  he  might  never  have  discovered  that  he 
possessed  it  had  he  not  conceived  the  idea  of  writing  poems 
v  in  dialect.  The  Northern  Farmer,  Old  Style  is  founded 
upon  the  dying  words  of  a  farm  bailiff,  "God  A'mighty  little 
knows  what  He's  about,  a-taking  me.  An'  Squire  will  be 
so  mad  an'  all."  Tennyson  carried  this  expression  in  his 
mind  for  years,  and  also  the  text  of  the  farmer  of  the  new 
style,  whose  original  was  reported  to  have  said,  "When 
I  canters  my  'erse  along  the  ramper  (highway),  I  'ears 
proputty,  proputty,  proputty."  Then  the  delightful  Northern 
Cobbler  sprang  from  the  story  of  a  man  who  "  set  up  a  bottle 
of  gin  in  his  window  when  he  gave  up  drinking,  in  order  to 
defy  the  drink."  Turning  over  the  pages  of  the  Church- 

^  Warden  and  the  Curate  we  come  upon  lines  full  of  delightful 
humour  from  Tennyson  himself: 


TENNYSON  57 

"If  ever  tha  means  to  git  'igber, 
Tha  mun  tackle  the  sins  o'  the  wo'ld,  an'  not  the  faults  o'  the  Squire." 

The  discovery  of  this  new  power  of  portraying  character 
moved  Tennyson  towards  the  dramatic  form,  and  this  is 
one  of  the  changes  in  the  work  of  the  last  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  of  his  life.  He  came  to  feel  that  the  thoughts  and 
experiences  of  his  already  long  life  could  not  be  any  longer 
cabined  and  confined  in  the  twists  of  a  severed  tress,  or 
the  curl  of  an  apple  rind.  His  early  poems  had  no  theme 
which  could  be  put  into  prose,  but  essays  might  be  written 
on  the  subject  of  his  later  ones.  The  thought  is  weightier, 
and  there  is  change  in  the  diction  and  rhythm  as  well.  The 
early  poems  are  characterised  by  smoothness,  the  later  ones 
by  strength.  Contrast  the  "  moonshine  maidens,"  as  they 
have  been  called,  of  the  Poems  of  1830 — Claribel,  Lilian  and 
the  rest — with  Locks  ley  Hall  Sixty  Years  After.  That 
Tennyson  could  still  write  as  smoothly  as  ever  is  shown  by 
Crossing  the  Bar  and  the  exquisite  song,  "  To  sleep,  to  sleep." 
But  in  these  later  days  many  of  his  themes  did  not  permit 
such  treatment.  The  heavier  material  he  was  handling 
demanded  different  words  and  different  metre.  The  change^/ 
was  all  a  movement  towards  reality.  Tennyson  never 
became  what  is  commonly  understood  by  the  phrase  "a  » 
realist";  but  he  did  in  his  old  age  come  into  much  closer 
contact  with  the  workaday  world  than  in  the  beginning 
of  his  career.  This  line  of  development  led  Tennyson  to 
the  drama.  This  was  the  final  step,  and  it  was  so  un-j 
expected  that  when  his  first  play,  Queen  Mary,  appeared  in 
1875  nearly  all  anticipated  failure.  And  they  were  not  mis- 
taken. There  was  plenty  of  matter  ;  but  it  was  ill  handled, 
the  characters  were  not  interesting,  and  the  piece  lacked 
poetry.  Harold  followed  in  1876;  and  in  1884  Becket,  The  j 
Cup  and  The  Falcon  showed  that  this  poet  approaching 
eighty  had  not  lost  his  power  to  learn.  'The  characters 
of  Harold  and  Becket  are  well  drawn,  and  in  both  plays 


58  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

Tennyson  was  fortunate  in  his  subject,  but  especially  so 
in  the  case  of  the  great  prelate  of  Henry  ITs  time.  The 
struggle  between  Church  and  State  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
as  represented  by  the  personal  conflict  between  King  Henry 
and  his  bold  subject,  is  one  of  the  most  dramatic  in  English 
history.  Tennyson  has  skilfully  contrasted  these  two  chief 
actors  in  it,  and  yet  revealed  the  likeness  between  them, 
showing  Becket  to  be  stronger  than  Henry  by  reason  of 
the  discipline  which  circumstances  had  given  to  the  one 
and  denied  to  the  other.  In  the  two  women  of  this  drama, 
Eleanor  and  Rosamond,  his  touch  is  no  less  sure.  The 
gentle  feminine  dependence,  loyalty  and  long-suffering  of 
the  latter  give  little  cause  for  the  cruel  scorn  of  Eleanor, 
and  leave  us  indignant  with  her  harshness.  The  best  part 
of  ten  years  was  given  by  Tennyson  to  these  experiments 
in  character-drawing.  His  early  admirers  grudged  the 
time,  but  he  judged  better  than  they.  He  could  hardly 
have  surpassed  himself  in  other  forms  of  verse  or  added 
anything  strikingly  new;  while  in  the  plays  which  contain 
the  characters  of  Harold,  Becket,  Eleanor,  Rosamond,  and 
Edith  we  have  valuable  additions  to  the  dramatic  portrait- 
gallery  of  England. 

§  3.     Browning 

Robert  Browning  (1812 — 1889),  the  most  serious 
rival  of  Tennyson  among  the  poets  of  the  Victorian  era, 
was  reared  in  an  atmosphere  of  learning,  and,  in  the  language 
of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  grew  up  as  familiar  with  books 
as  a  stable  boy  is  with  horses.  The  bookcases  of  his 
father's  modest  house  in  Clapham  were  filled  with  the  best 
English,  French,  Greek  and  Latin  authors.  The  elder 
Browning,  who  was  a  clerk  in  the  Bank  of  England,  found 
in  them  recreation  and  relief  from  the  dull  monotony  of  his 
daily  work,  and  he  had  trained  himself  unknowingly  to  be 


BROWNINfc  59 

abler  than  most  fathers  to  cultivate  and  foster  the  genius 
of  his  gifted  son.  The  Brownings  were  dissenters,  and  in 
the  poet's  childhood  the  Act  of  Uniformity  still  pressed  its 
iron  weight  on  the  country  and  kept  the  best  education  for 
the  sons  of  Churchmen.  The  public  schools  and  the  uni- 
versities were  closed  to  young  Browning.  But  in  his  case 
this  deprivation  is  hardly  to  be  regretted;  in  fact  it  may 
have  helped  to  strengthen  the  originality  of  mind  for  which 
he  is  distinguished.  He  would  not  have  been  a  better  poet 
had  he  won  university  distinctions,  but  he  might  have  been 
a  more  conventional  one.  The  elder  Browning  recognised 
the  rare  gifts  of  his  boy  and  determined  to  make  him  an 
author  by  profession.  This  was  the  resolution  of  a  big- 
minded  man,  for  he  knew  from  his  own  wide  reading  that 
the  preparation  for  this  task  of  making  books  is  expensive 
and  prolonged  and  the  prizes  to  be  won  in  it  few,  while 
even  moderate  success  is  uncertain  and  difficult  to  attain. 
His  own  income  was  small,  but  he  was  ready  to  venture 
it  and  his  savings  on  his  son.  The  boy  took  his  profession 
very  seriously,  and  we  find  him  setting  out  to  prepare  himself 
by  "reading  and  digesting  the  whole  of  Johnson's  dictionary." 
Browning  stands  then  with  Milton  among  the  very  few 
Englishmen  who  have  been  deliberately  dedicated  to,  and 
therefore  educated  for,  the  profession  of  literature.  For 
three  years  he  was  taught  by  a  private  tutor,  and  for  one 
session  he  attended  lectures  at  the  University  of  London, 
afterwards  University  College.  His  father  then  sent  him 
to  travel  for  a  year,  and  he  visited  Russia  and  Italy,  and 
drank  in  knowledge  of  all  sorts.  Even  in  art  Rossetti 
compares  his  attainments  with  those  of  Ruskin  to  the 
disadvantage  of  the  latter.  "  I  found,"  he  says,  "  his 
[Browning's]  knowledge  of  early  Italian  art  beyond  that 
of  anyone  I  ever  met — encyclopedically  beyond  that  of 
Ruskin  himself." 

When  Browning  was  twelve  years  old  his  proud  father 


60  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

had  gone  to  the  expense  of  privately  printing  a  volume  of 
verses  under  the  title  of  Incondita.  Nine  years  later  an 
aunt  bore  the  cost  of  publishing  Pauline.  It  is  called  "  a 
fragment  of  a  confession."  The  confession,  which  is  the 
poet's  own,  reveals  all  his  youthful  ideals  and  his  manner 
of  training  himself  for  his  career.  We  also  find  there  the 
idea  that  there  is  nothing  of  first  importance  in  life  except 
the  growth  of  the  soul.  This  conception  governs  the  whole 
of  his  work  to  the  end  of  his  life;  and  to  the  end  the 
development  of  the  soul  is  the  theme  of  his  greatest  works. 
Nothing  else,  he  tells  us,  is  worth  study.  Two  years  after 
Pauline  Browning  published  Paracelsus,  in  some  ways  the 
most  remarkable  of  all  his  works.  He  was  only  twenty- 
three,  and  yet  he  had  reached  almost  his  full  literary  stature. 
Had  he  advanced  subsequently  in  a  similar  degree,  he 
would  have  rivalled  the  first  poet  of  all  time.  But  in  his 
development  he  differs  from  Tennyson.  The  latter  grew 
in  force  and  richness  and  in  depth  of  meaning  until  the 
close  of  his  long  life,  while  Browning  rarely  wrote  with 
greater  power  than  in  this,  the  first  poem  he  was  willing  to 
acknowledge  ;  for  in  after-life  he  was  ashamed  of  Pauline 
and  only  suffered  it  to  be  reprinted  from  fear  of  piracy. 

In  1844  Browning  married  the  poetess  Elizabeth  Barrett. 
She  was  an  invalid  and  he  practically  carried  her  to  the 
church  in  Euston  Road,  where  they  were  married  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  her  relatives.  Their  consent,  the 
Brownings  thought,  it  would  be  hopeless  to  ask ;  and  sub- 
sequent events  proved  that  they  were  right,  for  Mr  Barrett 
thought  that  such  a  union  was  an  outrage  upon  decency, 
and  refused  to  grant  his  daughter  his  forgiveness.  To  put 
many  miles  between  them  and  these  unsympathetic  relations 
the  poet  and  his  wife  set  up  their  home  in  Italy.  There  a 
son  was  born  to  them,  and  there  they  found  inspiration  for 
much  of  their  most  important  work.  After  Mrs  Browning's 
death  in  1861  her  husband  came  back  to  England;  but 


BROWNING  61 

his  heart  was  in  his  adopted  country,  concerning  which 
he  had  said,  paraphrasing  Queen  Mary,  that  the  word  Italy 
would  be  found  engraven  in  his  heart.  He  went  back  to 
it  in  the  end  and  died  in  the  beautiful  palace  of  his  son 
upon  the  Grand  Canal  of  Venice. 

That  we  may  fully  understand  Browning's  work  it  is 
necessary  to  recognise  the  two  great  principles  which  run 
through  it  all.  They  are  the  principles  of  love  and  of  know- 
ledge ;  and  he  held  that  the  greater  is  love.  Paracelsus 
makes  a  failure  of  his  life  from  his  one-sided  devotion  to 
knowledge,  which  he  looks  upon  as  the  gateway  of  power. 
He  is  like  an  Eastern  carpet-weaver  who  should  set  to 
work  believing  that  some  one  colour  is  the  most  beautiful 
of  all,  and  that  the  whole  web  should  consist  of  it.  After 
nine  weary  years  of  isolation  and  toil  he  ends  his  experi- 
ments, convinced  by  his  own  failures  that  every  colour  has 
its  own  beauty,  and  that  the  business  of  life  is  to  use  them 
all  and  to  find  for  each  its  place  in  the  pattern. 

These  thoughts  appear  in  all  Browning's  works ;  they 
are  his  philosophy  of  life.  In  Paracelsus  he  tries  to  keep 
his  mind  on  the  poet's  side  of  the  line  that  divides  poetry 
from  philosophy.  But  too  often  he  strays  beyond  it. 
In  this  way  his  metaphysics  often  overloads  his  poetry  and 
makes  its  meaning  difficult.  It  certainly  does  so  in  Sordello. 
It  is  questionable  whether  this  poem  has  ever  been  under- 
stood, and  some  have  hinted  that  the  author  could  explain 
it  very  little  better  than  his  critics.  There  is  a  well-known 
story  that  Douglas  Jerrold,  reading  it  in  illness  and  finding 
himself  utterly  unable  to  take  in  its  meaning,  was  thrown 
into  a  panic  by  the  belief  that  he  had  lost  his  reason  ;  and 
Harriet  Martineau  relates  in  her  autobiography  that  for  the 
same  cause  she  thought  she  must  be  ill. 

Paracelsus  is  a  poem  in  dramatic  form,  but  it  is  not  a 
regular  play.  In  1837  however,  at  the  suggestion  of  his 
friend  Macready  the  actor,  Browning  wrote  the  drama  of 


62  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

Strafford,  and  for  eight  years  the  bulk  of  his  work  took 
the  dramatic  form.  Six  of  the  eight  numbers  of  Bells  and 
Pomegranates  were  plays — King  Victor  and  King  Charles, 
The  Return  of  the  Druses,  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  Colombe's 
Birthday ',  Luria  and  A  Soul's  Tragedy.  Browning  possessed 
in  the  highest  degree  some  of  the  gifts  of  a  dramatic  genius, 
but  he  did  not  possess  all.  For  this  reason  his  plays  have 
failed  to  keep  the  stage.  Their  chief  defect  is  want  of 
action.  We  are  always  either  looking  backward  at  some 
great  tragedy  which  has  taken  place,  or  waiting  outside 
helpless  while  another  is  being  perpetrated.  Much  is  said 
but  little  is  done. 

Browning  at  last  realised  that  for  him  there  were 
none  of  the  solid  rewards  of  a  successful  playwright,  and 
diverted  his  mind  to  the  production  of  those  dramatic 
monologues  which  gave  the  best  expression  to  his  very 
original  intellect.  Each  character  gives  its  own  version 
of  the  story  in  which  he  has  played  a  part.  This  is  the 
prevalent  form  in  the  remaining  two  numbers  of  Bells 
and  Pomegranates^  namely,  Dramatic  Lyrics  and  Dramatic 
Romances  and  Lyrics.  The  poems  so  entitled  are  of  many 
kinds.  Two,  The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin  and  How  they 
brought  the  Good  News  from  Ghent  to  Aix,  are  most  spirited 
narratives;  some,  like  Home  Thoughts  from  Abroad  and 
Home  Thoughts  from  the  Sea,  are  expressions  of  the  poet's 
own  emotion ;  but  most  of  them  are  intensely  vivid  studies 
of  character,  generally  in  some  moment  of  crisis.  Such  are 
In  a  Gondola^  Porphyrids  Lover,  The  Flight  of  the  Duchess, 
and  The  Bishop  orders  his  Tomb  at  St  Praxed's  Church. 
Of  the  last-named  poem  Ruskin  wrote,  "  I  know  no  other 
-piece  of  English  prose  or  poetry,  in  which  there  is  so  much 
,  \  told,  as  in  these  lines,  of  the  Renaissance  spirit — its  world- 
liness,  pride,  hypocrisy,  ignorance  of  itself,  love  of  art,  of 
luxury,  and  of  good  Latin/' 

After  Bells  and  Pomegranates  came  Christmas  Eve  and 


BROWNING  63 

Easter  Day.  These  poems  were  written  at  a  time  when 
religious  questions  were  disturbing  England  in  general  and 
Oxford  in  particular ;  and  now  humorously,  now  in  serious 
fashion,  they  contributed  the  poet's  criticism  of  the  religious 
unrest.  The  scenes  we  see  in  Christmas  Eve  are  a  Non- 
conformist chapel,  St  Peter's  in  Rome  and  a  German 
freethinker's  lecture  room.  They  are  the  centres  of  some 
delightful  pictures,  half  pathetic,  half  laughable.  In  the 
dissenting  congregation  there  is  "  the  fat  weary  woman," 
with  her  umbrella  a  wreck  of  whalebones,  and  "the  little 
old-faced,  peaking,  sister-turned-mother "  of  the  sickly 
babe,  who  has  trudged  to  chapel  through  the  rain  and  is 
now  adding  "  her  tribute  to  the  door-mat  sopping/'  Then, 

"  By  the  creaking  rail  to  the  lecture-desk, 
Step  by  step,  deliberate 
Because  of  his  cranium's  over-freight," 

we  see  "the  hawk-nosed,  high-cheek-boned  professor  "mount 
to  the  desk,  where  he  proceeds  to  exhaust  faith,  as  air  is 
pumped  atom  by  atom  from  an  air-bell. 

This  poem  and  the  companion  piece  are,  for  Browning, 
singularly  free  from  entanglement,  and  so  is  the  collection 
called  Men  and  Women,  in  which  are  included  the  exquisite 
verses,  One  Word  More,  addressed  to  his  wife : 

"  There  they  are,  my  fifty  men  and  women 
Naming  me  the  fifty  poems  finished ! 
Take  them,  Love,  the  book  and  me  together: 
Where  the  heart  lies,  let  the  brain  lie  also." 

Christmas  Eve  and  Easter  Day  form  part  of  a  group  of 
poems  which  cover  nearly  the  whole  of  religious  thought. 
Others  are  to  be  found  in  the  collection  just  mentioned, 
Men  and  Women,  and  others  again  in  Dramatis  Personae. 
In  this  group  we  have  pictures  of  the  soul  of  the  primitive 
man  groping  for  something  to  worship  and  fashioning  his 
god  in  his  own  rude  image.  Such  is  Caliban,  the  speaker  in 
Caliban  upon  Setebos.  In  Cleon  we  have  taken  an  enormous 


64  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

stride  onwards.  The  speaker  is  a  polished  Greek,  sceptical, 
but  lured  by  the  thought  of  the  immortal  life  promised 
by  the  barbarian  Paul  to  whoever  will  become  a  Christian. 
But  Clean  argues  that  were  this  idea  true,  Jove  would  surely 
have  revealed  it  to  the  Greeks.  Karshish  is  the  learned 
Arabian  doctor  who,  having  seen  and  talked  with  the  newly 
raised  Lazarus,  stands  attracted  by  Christ's  character,  but 
repelled  by  the  miracle  worked  in  the  tomb.  I  In  Caliban 
upon  Setebos  Browning  will  have  us  realise  mat  the  god 
of  our  conception  is  apt  to  be  a  god  of  our  own  creation. 
Setebos  is  the  being  worshipped  by  Caliban,  and  his  nature 
is  cruel  as  Caliban's  own.  In  Saul  the  speaker  is  David, 
and  the  subject  is  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.  But  it  is  in 
Rabbi  Ben  Ezra  that  we  hear  Browning's  clearest  song  of 
faith.  The  Rabbi  is  an  old  man,  the  type  of  all  that  is  best 
and  wisest  in  his  race,  and  so  his  ideals  are  fit  for  either 
Jew  or  Gentile.  Browning  would  have  us  see  that  the 
purest  religion  is  of  any  creed  or  none.  In  the  Pope  in 
The  Ring  and  the  Book  we  have  another  Ben  Ezra.  They 
are  both  aged  men,  standing  on  the  brink  of  eternity. 
They  are  represented  as  giving  expression  to  their  inner- 
most beliefs,  and  these  are  identical,  although  one  speaker 
is  a  Jewish  Rabbi,  and  the  other  the  head  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  [They  welcome  pain  and  doubt  as  signs  of  our 
near  kinship  with  God,  and  they  hail  failure  and  disap- 
pointment as  a  stimulus  to  make  us  rise  above  ourselves. 
The  Rabbi  welcomes  "each  rebuff  that  turns  earth's  smooth- 
ness rough."  Better  high  aim  than  low  achievement,  he 
says  ;  and  Abt  Vogler  repeats  the  same  teaching.  High 
effort  that  has  proved  too  high  and  resulted  in  failure, 
heroic  struggle  that  has  been  too  hard  and  has  ended  in 
defeat,  these  are  "  music  sent  up  to  God  "  ;  .it  is  "  enough 
that  He  heard  it  once  :  we  shall  hear*  it  by  and  by." 

Browning's  next  publication  after  the  Dramatis  Personae, 
to  which  the  poems  last  mentioned  belong,  was  The  Ring 


BROWNING  65 

and  the  Book.  It  had  occupied  him  for  six  years.  There 
are  four  principal  characters  in  the  story — Count  Guido,  the 
husband  and  murderer  of  Pompilia  the  girl-wife,  Pompilia 
herself,  the  priest  Caponsacchi,  who  helps  her  to  escape 
from  Guido,  and  the  Pope,  who  examines  the  evidence  and 
pronounces  judgment  upon  the  criminal.  The  story  is  told 
in  turn  by  each  of  these  characters.  There  are  other 
speakers  as  well,  but  only  the  books  devoted  to  these 
four  characters  are  really  great.  Browning  shows  us  the 
husband,  Count  Guido,  in  two  wholly  different  aspects. 
On  the  first  occasion  he  is  the  great  noble,  the  polished 
Italian  gentleman.  He  touches,  half  with  pride,  half  with 
apology,  upon  his  vices — they  are  the  faults  of  his  age  and 
station,  he  is  no  worse  than  others  of  his  rank.  When  he  is 
tortured  in  order  to  extract  the  truth,  he  bears  his  sufferings 
with  trained  self-control  and  speaks  of  them  with  dignified 
restraint.  He  argues  his  case  with  his  judges  as  between 
one  man  of  birth  and  another,  touching  gently  but  with 
wily  cunning  upon  the  services  of  himself  and  his  house 
to  the  Church.  Throughout  this  scene  he  is  well-bred, 
courteous,  restrained,  deferential.  After  he  is  condemned 
and  is  convinced  that  all  hope  is  over,  we  see  before  us  the 
real  Guido.  His  fine  manners  have  fallen  from  him.  The 
veneer  of  breeding  is  rubbed  off.  His  whole  life  has  been 
a  lie,  and  nothing  now  remains  but  the  brute. 

Pompilia  is  the  finest  female  character  ever  drawn  by 
Browning.  The  aged  Pope  calls  her  "perfect  in  whiteness." 
He  sees  everywhere  intellect,  and  energy,  and  knowledge — 
sees  and  admires  ;  but  "  they  make  not  up,  I  think,  the 
marvel  of  a  soul  like  thine."  This  sweet  piece  of  woman- 
hood is  married  to  the  evil-living  Guido  and  shut  up  in  his 
castle  of  Arezzo,  where  she  lives  a  life  of  unmixed  suffering. 
She  is  patient  until  there  arises  a  question  of  right  and 
wrong.  "  God  plants  us  where  we  grow,"  she  says  and 
accepts  quietly  the  miseries  of  her  existence.  But  when 
w.  5 


66  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

she  feels  a  new  life  awakejiing  in  her,  the  child  that  is 
to  come,  she  turns  to  the  Church  for  protection  from  her 
cruel  husband.  She  must  have  outside  help  and  guidance, 
and  God's  priest  Caponsacchi  must  give  it.  Her  childlike 
appeal  for  help  is  the  salvation  of  Caponsacchi.  He  is  not 
an  evil-liver,  but  he  loves  pleasure,  and  the  demand  made 
upon  him  by  Pompilia  is  the  touchstone  by  which  he  is  to 
be  tested.  Redeemed  by  her  purity  and  innocence,  his 
light  easy-going  nature  is  gradually  crystallised  into  a  rock 
of  strength. 

Of  these  five  books  The  Pope  is  the  finest.  There 
is  nothing  grander  in  Browning  than  the  picture  of  this 
aged  man  sitting  in  the  seat  of  justice.  He  is  himself 
on  the  brink  of  death,  and  feels  the  possibility  that  his 
judgment  may  be  wrong.  But  there  is  no  shrinking  from 
his  awful  responsibility,  no  drawing  back  from  his  duty  as 
God's  vicar  upon  earth.  In  discharge  of  that  duty  he 
pronounces  sentence  : 

"  Acquaint  Count  Guido  and  his  fellows  four 
They  die  to-morrow." 

Then,  as  if  in  the  end  to  justify  the  severe  sentence, 
he  adds, 

"  I  may  die  this  very  night 
And  how  should  I  dare  die,  this  man  let  live?" 

After  The  Ring  and  the  Book  was  published  in  1869  - 
a  change  came  over  Browning,  and,  though  he  wrote 
much,  little  of  his  subsequent  work  rises  to  a  high  level 
as  poetry.  In  the  seventies  his  publications  followed  fast 
upon  one  another.  At  that  time  came  Prince  Hohenstiel- 
Schwangau  and  Balaustioris  Adventure^  Fifine  at  the  Fair, 
Red  Cotton  Night- Cap  Country ',  The  Inn  Album  and  two 
series  of  Dramatic  Idylls.  His  Greek  translations  were 
another  development  of  this  period,  the  Agamemnon  of 
Aeschylus  and  Aristophanes  Apology.  On  the  whole  the 
translations  are  not  successful.  Browning  leaves  these 


MINOR   SINGERS  67 

classics  almost  as  difficult  for  the  English  reader  as  they 
are  in  the  original  Greek. 

Browning's  last  work  was  Asolando.  It  came  out  almost 
at  the  moment  of  his  death,  and  proclaimed  again  his  faith 
that  often  through  evil  itself  a  higher  good  is  won.  Of 
himself  he  wrote  as 

"  One  who  never  turned  his  back  but  marched  breast  forward, 

Never  doubted  clouds  would  break, 

Never  dreamed,  though  right  was  worsted,  wrong  would  triumph, 
Held  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better, 
Sleep  to  wake." 

§  4.     Minor  Singers 

The  preceding  sketch  of  the  work  of  Tennyson  and 
Browning  shows  that  a  considerable  time  had  to  pass 
before  even  they  could  make  a  deep  impression  upon 
their  contemporaries.  The  taste  for  poetry  had  declined, 
and  it  was  no  easy  task  to  revive  it.  Notwithstanding 
this,  a  great  deal  of  poetry  was  written  in  the  years 
between  the  advent  of  Tennyson  and  the  middle  of  the 
century,  and  some  of  it  was  very  good.  But  the  whole 
ma§s  is  confusing,  and  the  only  means  by  which  we  may 
hope  to  find  a  path  through  it  is  by  grouping  the  writers  in 
classes.  There  were  writers  of  ballads,  of  vers  de  socie'te,  of 
religious  poetry,  of  philosophical  poetry,  of  political  poetry. 
There  were  besides  two  other  groups,  one  of  which  must  be 
noticed  because  of  race,  and  the  other  because  of  sex — the 
Celtic  poets  and  the  women  poets. 

The  ballad  writers  are  the  literary  descendants  of 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  to  whom  the  most  important  of  them, 
Macaulay,  in  the  preface  to  the  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome, 
acknowledges  his  indebtedness.  Macaulay  has  been  spoken 
of  too  harshly  by  Matthew  Arnold,  who  calls  his  Lays 
"  pinchbeck."  The  criticism  is  hardly  just ;  Macaulay  did 
not  aim  at  writing  sublime  poetry,  he  tried  to  produce 

5—2 


68  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

spirited  verse  and  to  make  it  live  by  his  vivid  narrative. 
And  he  succeeded.  In  these  Roman  ballads  we  hear  the 
sound  of  trampling  horses  and  of  clashing  arms,  and  surely 
we  are  richer  for  the  emotions  they  produce.  Another  who 
followed  the  lead  of  Scott  was  William  Edmonstoune 
Aytoun  (1813 — 1865),  the  author  of  the  Lays  of  the  Scottish 
Cavaliers.  Aytoun  was  a  man  of  varied  gifts.  He  wrote 
good  criticisms,  told  excellent  stories,  and  made  most 
amusing  parodies.  The  famous  Bon  Gaultier  Ballads  were 
the  joint  production  of  himself  and  of  Theodore  Martin. 
These  belong  to  the  sub-class  of  humorous  ballads ;  and 
akin  to  them  are  the  famous  Ingoldsby  Legends  of  R.  H. 
Barham,  of  which  The  Jackdaw  of  Rheims  is  the  best 
known.  But  the  greater  part  of  the  witty  verse  of  the 
period  has  lost  its  flavour.  Hardly  any  task  seems  more 
difficult  than  to  write  amusing  verse  so  that  it  shall  retain 
its  attractiveness  for  more  than  one  generation  ;  and  when 
success  is  achieved  it  is  because  of  humour  rather  than  wit. 
Few  forms  of  literature  are,  in  spirit,  more  sharply 
contrasted  with  the  ballads  than  vers  de  societe.  In  an 
unsophisticated  age,  when  the  art  of  delicate  repartee  and 
persiflage  has  not  had  time  to  be  cultivated,  the  two  could 
not  be  found  together,  because  in  such  an  age  an  artificial 
product  like  vers  de  societe  would  be  impossible.  In  the 
Victorian  period  the  ballad  was  a  revival.  That  epoch 
had  behind  it  centuries  of  literary  work.  It  would  not 
be  surprising  therefore  to  find  in  it  the  highly-finished 
product  we  call  vers  de  societe.  And  in  fact  we  do  find 
Winthrop  Mackworth  Praed  (1802 — 1839),  who  was  prob- 
ably the  most  skilful  of  all  English  writers  in  this 
form.  Among  earlier  writers  Praed's  only  serious  rival 
is  Prior.  Praed  began  to  write  while  he  was  still  at 
school,  and  his  early  verses  were  printed  in  The  Etonian, 
of  which  he  was  the  chief  supporter.  He  remained  an 
active  writer  until  the  end  of  his  life.  But  he  seems  to 


MINOR   SINGERS  69 

have  recognised  that  there  was  a  limit  to  his  powers,  for  he 
never  attempted  anything  deeply  serious,  and  there  is  not 
much  evidence  that  he  would  have  succeeded  had  he  made 
the  attempt.  We  cannot  say  that  he  was  prevented  by  his 
early  death,  for  he  lived  as  long  as  Burns,  and  much  longer 
than  Shelley  and  Keats.  But  the  playful  wit,  ready  sarcasm 
and  prolific  fancy  of  Praed  are  the  gifts  most  fitted  for  the 
making  of  society  verse.  Here  he  comes  as  near  greatness 
as  the  form  will  allow.  The  place  in  English  literature  of 
the  author  of  Quince,  The  Vicar  and  A  Letter  of  Advice 
is  secure,  though  it  is  not  among  the  highest. 

The  vers  de  soriM  of  Richard  Monckton  Milnes,  Lord 
Houghton  (1809 — 1885),  deserves  notice.  But  Milnes  wrote 
gracefully  upon  so  many  other  things  that  it  is  not  easy 
to  say  in  what  he  most  excelled.  Disraeli  in  Tancred 
has  outlined  his  character  in  Mr  Vavasour,  and  touched 
upon  the  "  catholic  sympathies  and  eclectic  turn  of  mind  " 
which  enabled  Milnes  to  see  good  in  everything  and  every- 
body. It  was  this  characteristic  which  impelled  Carlyle  to 
say  to  him,  "  There  is  only  one  post  fit  for  you,  and  that  is 
the  office  of  perpetual  president  of  the  Heaven  and  Hell 
Amalgamation  Society."  Everyone  loved  Milnes ;  and 
W.  E.  Forster  was  the  spokesman  of  all  who  knew  the  man 
when  he  said,  "  I  have  many  friends  who  would  be  kind 
to  me  in  distress,  but  only  one  who  would  be  equally  kind 
to  me  in  disgrace."  He  befriended  so  many  struggling 
authors  that  he  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  champion 
of  the  neglected  man  of  letters.  Milnes  had  great  gifts 
and  he  was  always  "near  something  very  glorious,"  but 
he  never  reached  it.  Perhaps  the  reason  was  the  very  readi- 
ness of  his  sympathy.  He  was  attracted  by  Newmanism 
and  pleaded  for  it  in  One  Tract  More ;  but  when  he  went 
to  the  East  he  was  equally  ready  to  be  pleased  with 
Mahommedanism.  In  poetry,  as  in  other  things,  Milnes 
was  perhaps  somewhat  too  versatile.  He  versified  his 


70  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

travels,  he  competed  with  Macaulay  and  Aytoun  in  his 
Poems,  Legendary  and  Historical,  and  he  reached,  perhaps, 
his  highest  point  in  the  beautiful  and  pathetic  lyric, 
Strangers  Yet.  But  in  nothing  was  he  so  uniformly  suc- 
cessful as  in  vers  de  societe1. 

In  the  religious  verse  of  this  period  we  see  the 
deeply-marked  influence  of  the  Oxford  Movement.  That, 
naturally,  inspires  the  poetry  of  Cardinal  Newman,  which 
has  already  been  mentioned.  It  shows  that,  though  he 
was  surpassed  by  Keble  in  poetic  achievement,  in  poetic 
endowment  he  ranked  first  among  the  promoters  of  the 
movement.  But  it  was  not  in  Newman  only  that  this 
spirit  was  shown.  In  their  degree  it  inspires  minor  writers 
such  as  Frederick  William  Faber,  Isaac  Williams  and 
John  Mason  Neale.  It  inspires  also  a  poet  far  greater  than 
they — R.  S.  Hawker,  author  of  The  Quest  of  the  Sangraal, 
and  a  spirited  balladist  as  well.  It  was  Hawker  who,  with 
The  Song  of  the  Western  Men,  deceived  Scott,  Macaulay 
and  Dickens,  all  of  whom  believed  it  to  be  a  genuine  old 
ballad. 

It  is  needless  to  dwell  on  the  ambitious  and  immoderately 
long  poem  of  Festus,  by  Philip  James  Bailey,  a  man  who  is 
sometimes  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the  spasmodic  school 
to  be  noticed  later.  There  was  a  time  when  some  good 
judges  ranked  Festus  extraordinarily  high,  and  it  contains 
lines  and  passages  of  great  merit.  But  it  is  fatally  marred 
by  the  unpardonable  style  of  the  greater  part  of  it.  Neither 
is  it  necessary  to  do  more  than  mention  the  political  poets. 
The  Purgatory  of  Smcides,  by  Thomas  Cooper  the  Chartist, 
is  notable  rather  because  of  the  life  of  the  author  than  for 
its  poetic  merit;  and  Capel  Lofft's  Ernest,  or  Political 
Regeneration  has  ceased  to  possess  the  power  of  curdling 
the  blood  which  it  exercised  over  our  ancestors. 

The  Celtic  poets  must  however  be  more  seriously 
treated,  were  it  only  because  they  are  one  of  the  symptoms 


MINOR   SINGERS  71 

or  phases  of  the  great  movement  of  nationality,  which  is 
a  prominent  feature  in  the  history  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
This  spirit  generates  a  peculiarly  local  and  also  peculiarly 
intense  form  of  patriotism,  and  patriotism  is  invariably 
accompanied  by  prejudice.  The  Englishman  of  the  time 
of  Napoleon  was  quite  convinced  that  he  was  as  good  as 
three  Frenchmen.  In  the  same  spirit  the  Celtic  eulogists 
of  Celtic  writers  have  sometimes  made  their  own  geese 
swans.  In  reality,  though  we  shall  find  an  Irish  flavour 
in  much  of  the  fiction  of  this  period,  we  shall  discover  no 
Celtic  novelist  of  the  first  rank  ;  and  though  there  were 
many  Irish  writers  of  verse  there  was  no  great  Irish  poet. 
Certainly  George  Darley,  author  of  Nepenthe  and  Sylvia, 
cannot  be  called  great ;  nor  Trench,  who  is  better  known, 
and  better  deserves  to  be  known,  from  his  books  on  the 
English  language  than  from  his  poetry.  The  one  Celtic 
writer  of  this  period  who  might  even  plausibly  be  called 
great  was  James  Clarence  Mangan  (1803 — 1849),  one  of 
the  numerous  poets  in  whom  great  gifts  have  not  been 
able  to  save  their  possessors  from  great  misery.  Some 
of  Mangan's  work  is  extremely  fine — for  example,  My 
Dark  Rosaleen  and  The  Karamanian  Exile.  The  latter 
is  notable  because  it  inspired  the  famous  American  poem, 
Maryland,  my  Maryland^  and  also  because  it  is  one  of 
several  instances  of  similarity  between  the  work  of  Mangan 
and  that  of  his  American  contemporary  Poe. 

There  remain  only  the  poetesses  who  come  under  this 
section.  They  have  at  least  one  thing  in  common  with  the 
Celtic  poets.  They  are  characteristic  of  the  time  by  reason 
of  their  sex,  as  the  others  are  by  reason  of  race.  Female 
writers  of  earlier  days  usually  concealed  their  authorship 
as  if  it  had  been  a  crime.  But  sentiment  changed,  it 
ceased  to  be  a  questionable  proceeding  for  women  to 
write,  and  the  natural  result  followed  that  far  more  of 
them  did  write.  In  the  years  just  before  the  Victorian 


72  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

period  Felicia  Hemans  and  Letitia  Elizabeth  Landon  were 
among  the  most  popular  writers  of  verse.  A  little  later  we 
find  among  the  songstresses  a  daughter  of  Coleridge  and 
no  fewer  than  three  of  the  daughters  of  Sheridan,  one  of 
whom,  the  celebrated  Mrs  Norton,  is  still  well  known  for 
her  Bingen  on  the  Rhine.  But  three  other  women,  Elizabeth 
Barrett  Browning,  Christina  Rossetti,  and  Emily  Bronte, 
overtopped  all  these.  The  two  last  will  however  be  most 
conveniently  noticed  elsewhere. 

Elizabeth  Barrett  (1806 — 1861),  who  by  marriage  be- 
came Elizabeth  Browning,  had  been  crippled  by  an  accident 
at  the  age  of  fifteen,  and  lived,  as  she  herself  declares,  a  life 
as  uneventful  as  that  of  a  bird  in  a  cage,  until  her  union  at 
forty  with  Robert  Browning,  a  man  six  years  her  junior. 
In  her  childhood  Mrs  Browning  gave  evidence  of  unusual 
power.  At  the  age  of  eight  she  read  her  Homer  in 
the  original.  At  a  later  date  she  studied  Plato  and  all 
the  Greek  poets,  and  worked  her  way  through  the  Bible  in 
Hebrew.  The  friendship  and  love  of  Browning  were  of 
great  value  to  her  genius.  They  may  almost  be  said  to 
have  awakened  it.  In  her  early  days  her  poetic  work  was 
imitative,  while  part  of  her  later  work,  written  under  the 
influence  of  her  lover  and  husband,  was  singularly  original. 
The  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese  are  unique  in  English  as 
the  expression  of  the  passion  of  love  from  the  woman's 
point  of  view ;  for  Christina  Rossetti's  Monna  Innominate 
is  inferior,  and  is  moreover  simply  an  effort  of  imagination, 
not  a  transcript  of  feeling  ;  and  Augusta  Webster's  exquisite 
sonnets  Mother  and  Daughter  deal  with  a  love  which,  though 
no  less  sacred,  is  quite  different.  Of  her  own  marriage 
Mrs  Browning  writes  with  a  pen  charged  with  emotion 
and  a  soul  exalted  by  her  love,  yet  humbled  by  her  sense 
of  unworthiness  to  be  loved.  No  one  else  has  ever  given 
such  poetic  expression  to  this  feeling  from  this  stand- 
point. 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   CENTURY  73 

The  besetting  sin  of  Mrs  Browning  is  diffuseness.  Her 
inability  to  condense  has  marred  the  charm  and  beauty  of 
The  Cry  of  the  Children,  The  Lay  of  the  Brown  Rosary,  The 
Rhyme  of  the  Duchess  May  and  Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship, 
as  well  as  the  verse  romance  of  Aurora  Leigh.  The  rigid 
law  which  limits  the  sonnet  to  fourteen  lines  was  her  salva- 
tion, and  we  can  find  no  fault  with  such  pieces  as  A  Souls 
Expression.  A  Child's  Grave  at  Florence,  though  in  a  freer 
form,  is  also  flawless.  But  diffuseness  is  a  sin  never  wholly 
pardoned  in  literature,  and  especially  in  poetry ;  and  there- 
fore it  is  probable  that,  when  the  verdict  of  posterity  is 
given,  Mrs  Browning's  place  will  be  less  lofty  than  that 
which  was  given  to  her  by  her  contemporaries. 

§  5.     The  Turn  of  the  Century 

By  the  year  1850  the  three  princes  in  the  kingdom  of 
letters,  Carlyle,  Tennyson  and  Browning,  had  fulfilled  the 
high  hopes  they  had  awakened  some  twenty  years  earlier. 
They  had  all  done  work  that  the  world  would  not  willingly 
lose,  and  they  were  destined  to  do  more.  But  from  below 
a  youthful  band  was  climbing  up.  Among  these  there 
were  no  fewer  than  seven  poets,  some  of  them  great,  and 
all  of  considerable  power.  They  were  Edward  FitzGerald, 
Matthew  Arnold,  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti  and  his  sister  Christina  Rossetti,  Sydney  Dobell 
and  Alexander  Smith.  If  we  ask  what  were  the  forces 
that  moulded  these  poets  and  the  ideas  that  inspired  their 
work,  it  will  be  found  that  the  answer  is  threefold.  They 
were  influenced  mainly  by  ideas 'of  religion,  by  ideas  of  art, 
and  by  the  sentiment  of  nationality.  Clough  and  Arnold 
are  the  poets  of  the  sceptical  reaction  against  the  teaching 
of  Cardinal  Newman  and  his  friends.  The  Rossettis  too 
were  related  to  the  Oxford  Movement ;  but  in  their  case 
the  relation  was  one  of  sympathy,  not  of  criticism,  and  in 


74  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

Dante  Rossetti  the  religious  side  was  subordinate  to  the 
artistic  one.  FitzGerald  stood  alone,  but  he  shows  in  the 
spirit  of  his  work  some  kinship  with  the  Oxford  poets.  Of 
the  seven,  Dobell  exhibits  most  conspicuously  the  influence 
of  the  spirit  of  nationality.  But  it  was  present  in  others 
too,  as  was  natural  in  view  of  the  fact  that  1848  was  the 
year  of  the  revolutions  which  shook  every  throne  in  Europe. 
Though  the  revolutionary  movements  were  mostly  unsuc- 
cessful, they  produced  momentous  consequences,  leading 
as  they  did  to  the  partial  disintegration  of  the  Austrian 
empire  and  to  the  unification  of  Italy.  The  Chartist 
movement  shows  that  England  too  was  affected,  though 
in  a  less  degree.  London  was  the  asylum  of  hundreds  of 
political  refugees.  Carlyle  remembered  seeing,  at  an  earlier 
date,  the  "  stately  tragic  figures  "  of  exiled  Spaniards ;  and 
the  house  of  Dante  Rossetti's  father,  himself  a  political 
refugee,  was  thronged  with  fellow-exiles  from  Italy.  All 
this  is  naturally  reflected  in  the  poetry.  We  see  its  influ- 
ence in  the  patriotic  poems  of  Tennyson,  in  Mrs  Browning's 
Casa  Guidi  Windows,  but  most  conspicuously  of  all  in  the 
work  of  Sydney  Dobell. 

To  Arthur  Hugh  Clough  (1819 — i86i)and  to  Matthew 
Arnold  (1822 — 1888)  the  questions  of  profoundest  interest 
were  questions  of  religion.  They  were  both  poets  of  doubt 
who  would  gladly  have  believed  if  they  could,  and  each 
preaches  the  gospel  of  endurance  and  of  work.  Their 
early  training  as  boys  at  Rugby  School,  under  the  father 
of  Arnold,  counts  for  much.  There  they  learnt  from  the 
great  head  master  to  search  for  truth,  and  this  teaching 
started  in  their  minds  the  critical  questioning  which  upset 
their  faith  in  authority. 

Clough  was  born  in  Liverpool,  was  taken  to  America 
when  he  was  four,  was  brought  back  again  five  years  later 
and  sent  to  school  at  Rugby,  which  he  left  to  become  a 
scholar  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford.  After  taking  his  degree 


THE   TURN    OF  THE   CENTURY  75 

he  was  elected  a  fellow,  and  afterwards  a  tutor,  of  Oriel 
College ;  but  he  resigned  both  these  posts  when  he  was 
twenty-nine,  because  he  felt  that  his  position  gave  him 
the  appearance  of  believing  many  things  which  he  did  not 
believe.  His  friends  were  dismayed  at  his  decision,  for  it 
was  not  clear  how  he  was  to  earn  his  daily  bread.  Clough 
was  however  almost  at  once  invited  to  become  head  of 
University  Hall,  London,  which  was  a  place  of  residence 
for  students.  The  few  months  between  the  date  of  his 
appointment  and  the  commencement  of  his  duties  were 
spent  in  Italy.  He  was  in  Rome  during  its  siege  by  the 
French,  and  there  he  wrote  Amours  de  Voyage,  a  corre- 
spondence in  verse.  It  was  not  published  till  1858.  After 
a  short  time  he  resigned  his  appointment  in  University  Hall 
and  went  to  America  with  the  intention  of  settling  there. 
He  was  however  recalled  to  a  position  in  the  Education 
Office  in  London,  in  which  he  spent  the  few  years  that 
remained  to  him  of  life,  too  busy  to  write  much  poetry. 
The  Bothie  of  Tober-na-  Viwlich  was  not  Clough's  first 
poem,  but  it  was  the  first  in  order  of  publication.  It 
appeared  after  he  had  come  to  the  end  of  what  he  calls 
his  "spiritual  servitude  as  a  teacher  of  the  thirty-nine 
articles."  It  is  like  the  work  of  a  prisoner  suddenly 
set  at  liberty,  and  is  full  of  the  jests  and  high  spirits  of 
the  schoolboy  at  recess.  His  most  ambitious  work  is 
Dipsychus,  which  was  not  published  in  his  lifetime.  It 
too  closely  resembles  Goethe's  Faust,  and  suffers  from  the 
inevitable  comparison.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting  thing 
to  notice  about  the  poem  is  the  presence  in  it  of  the  re- 
markable conception  that  good  may  be  evolved  not  only 
out  of  physical  evil,  but  even  out  of  sin.  This  is  a  favourite 
thought  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  is  reiterated  again 
and  again  by  Browning,  and  it  is  the  very  soul  and 
substance  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  great  romance,  The 
Marble  Faun.  So  in  Clough  we  read, 


76  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

"What  we  call  sin 
I  could  believe  a  painful  opening  out 
Of  paths  for  ampler  virtue." 

Clough  loves  best  to  move  in  the  region  of  such  profound 
ethical  and  religious  ideas.  They  are  present  in  the  best 
of  his  shorter  poems  too,  for  example,  in  Easter  Day  and 
The  New  Sinai. 

Matthew  Arnold  followed  his  friend  to  Oxford  four 
years  later,  and,  like  him,  disappointed  his  tutors  by  taking 
a  second  class.  But  his  place  in  the  honours  list  had  not 
hidden  his  real  power  from  his  contemporaries.  J.  C.  Shairp, 
the  critic  and  poet,  describes  Arnold  at  this  time  as 

"  So  full  of  power,  yet  blithe  and  debonair, 
Rallying  his  friends  with  pleasant  banter  gay, 
Or  half-a-dream  chaunting  with  jaunty  air 
Great  words  of  Goethe,  catch  of  Beranger." 

The  fellows  of  Oriel  likewise  recognised  his  power,  and 
gave  him  a  fellowship  ;  and  Lord  Lansdowne  soon  after- 
wards made  him  his  private  secretary.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-nine  he  became  an  inspector  of  schools,  in  which 
position  he  remained  almost  to  the  end  of  his  life.  But 
for  ten  years  he  held  also  the  more  congenial  office  of 
professor  of  poetry  at  Oxford,  and  to  his  tenure  of  this 
chair  we  owe  the  valuable  lectures  On  Translating  Homer. 

Arnold's  poetry  was  chiefly  the  product  of  his  early  life. 
His  first  volume  was  The  Strayed  Reveller ••  three  years 
later  came  Empedocles  on  Etna ;  then  a  volume  of  Poems , 
partly  new  and  partly  old.  Thyrsis  (1866),  an  exquisite 
elegy  on  the  death  of  his  friend  Clough,  and  New  Poems 
(1867)  are  almost  the  last  of  Arnold's  poetical  works.. 
Afterwards  he  wrote  only  a  few  fugitive  pieces  suggested 
by  passing  events.  Such  are  the  elegy  on  the  death  of 
Dean  Stanley  and  the  beautiful  verses  in  memory  of  the 
dead  pets,  the  dogs  Geist  and  Kaiser  and  the  canary 
Matthias,  which  are  buried  in  the  garden  of  his  home 
at  Cobham. 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   CENTURY  77 

When  The  Strayed  Reveller  was  published  Arnold  was 
considerably  older  in  years  than  Browning  and  Tennyson 
when  they  first  appeared  as  poets.  Unlike  them  in  men- 
tal development,  he  had  nearly  reached  his  full  stature  in 
poetry.  The  whole  period  of  his  poetic  activity  was  less 
than  twenty  years,  and  there  was  no  line  dividing  the  verse 
of  his  youth  from  the  finished  product  of  his  maturer 
years.  In  the  contents  of  this  first  book  of  poems  we  find 
the  circle  of  Arnold's  thoughts  and  interests  almost  com- 
plete. There  is  omitted  from  it  only  one  type  which  he 
afterwards  wrote,  and  wrote  finely — the  narrative  in  blank 
verse ;  for,  though  there  is  no  elegy,  in  Resignation^  in 
The  Sick  King  of  Bokhara  and  To  a  Gipsy  Child  there  is 
plenty  of  the  elegiac  spirit.  It  is  true  we  could  ill  spare 
what  in  the  later  volumes  he  gives  us,  but  the  themes  he 
chooses  are  not  wholly  new.  The  same  thoughts  are 
reiterated  with  fresh  illustrations.  Arnold  felt  that  there 
was  much  amiss  in  the  world,  and  his  verse  is  tinged  with 
melancholy.  In  his  own  words,  for  him,  as  for  the  author 
of  Obermann,  all  through  nature 

"There  sobs  I  know  not  what  ground-tone 
Of  human  agony." 

The  poet  had  little  faith  in  his  own  generation,  because  it 
seemed  to  him  to  have  flung  off  the  duties  and  high  ideals  of 
the  past.  The  old  world  was  dead  and  the  new  "  powerless 
to  be  born."  The  gloom  is  occasionally  mistaken  for  affec- 
tation, and  for  this  reason  the  poetry  of  Arnold  is  by  some 
actively  disliked  :  it  is  certainly  misunderstood.  But  for 
Arnold  to  put  by  this  gloom  would  have  been  equivalent 
to  putting  by  his  own  nature.  Perhaps  he  holds  himself 
too  much  aloof  from  the  rush  and  hurry  of  modern  life;  for 
many  feel  that  his  poetry  is  passionless,  cold,  "  like  a  starry 
night  with  a  touch  of  frost — beautiful  and  chilly."  There  is 
no  movement  in  his  half-dramatic  poem  Empedocles  on  Etna 
or  in  the  narratives  Balder  Dead  and  Sohrab  and  Rustum. 


78  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 


i  u~ 


In  all  his  works  there  is  no  passionate  outburst,  no  red-hot 
emotion.  Everything  is  restrained  :  in  his  own  words  we 
must  "possess  our  souls."  "A  criticism  of  life"  is  the 
definition  Arnold  gives  of  poetry,  and  this  best  explains 
the  spirit  in  which  he  wrote.  His  model  was  classic, 
and  the  human  forces  of  modern  England  were  alien  to 
his  ideal.  Swinburne  understood  the  value  of  Arnold's 
verse  when  he  spoke  of  the  "absolute  loveliness  of 
sound  and  colour  "  in  the  song  of  Callicles  in  Empedocles 
on  Etna.  It  is  the  same  perfection  which  delights  us  in 
Requiescat.  Arnold  lived  near,  but  he  shrank  from,  the 
"sick  hurry"  of  modern  life,  its  "divided  aims."  For 
that  reason  he  could  never,  any  more  than  his  con- 
temporary Edward  FitzGerald,  be  the  poet  of  the  people 
as  Tennyson  was. 

Arnold  was  in  the  world,  but  not  of  it.  FitzGerald 
was  neither  in  it  nor  of  it.  His  life  was  spent  in  such 
retirement  that  in  writing  to  Carlyle  eight  months  after 
the  death  of  Mrs  Carlyle,  he  sent  her  his  compliments. 
His  letters  and  his  verses  are  the  work  of  a  born  man  of 
letters,  and  his  prose  dialogue  Euphranor  is  in  exquisite 
English.  But  his  greatest  achievement  is  the  translation 
of  the  Persian  poet,  Omar  Khayyam,  who  lived  eight 
hundred  years  ago  and  left  behind  him  in  his  verse  a 
record  of  his  philosophy  of  life.  He  bids  us  "  eat,  drink 
and  be  merry,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  This  is  an  injunc- 
tion which  hardly  commends  itself  to  us  by  either  its 
novelty  or  its  morality.  But  behind  it  there  is  a  deeper 
meaning  in  Omar — what  Matthew  Arnold  calls  "the  in- 
finite regret  for  all  that  might  have  been."  It  is  curious 
to  notice  the  resemblance  between  the  Latin  poet  Horace 
and  the  translation  of  FitzGerald.  Horace  is  purely  of  the 
western  world,  but  the  English  Omar  is  a  blend  of  Oriental 
voluptuousness  with  the  restraint  of  the  Roman  stoic  ;  and 
although  the  original  quatrains  were  written  in  a  far-off 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   CENTURY  79 

country  and  in  a  far-away  time,  the  Rubdiydt,  as  reinter- 
preted by  FitzGerald,  are  a  criticism  of  a  life  which  men  are 
living  here  and  now. 

Of  the  first  edition  of  FitzGerald's  great  work  only  two 
hundred  and  fifty  copies  were  printed,  and  two  hundred  of 
these  were  given  to  Quaritch  the  bookseller,  who  sold  them 
at  one  penny  each.  Rossetti  and  Swinburne  bought  theirs 
at  this  price.  Now,  a  small  library  has  grown  up  around 
the  404  lines  of  FitzGerald's  Omar  Khayyam.  Although 
it  professes  to  be  only  a  translation,  it  is,  as  Professor  Norton 
says,  "  the  work  of  a  poet  inspired  by  a  poet ;  not  a  copy 
but  a  reproduction,  not  a  translation  but  the  redelivery  of 
a  poetic  inspiration." 

The  next  great  poet  of  the  seven  who  appeared  at  this 
period  is  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  (1828 — 1882).  He  was 
the  son  of  Italian  parents,  born  and  brought  up  in  England, 
where  his  father  had  taken  refuge  because  of  political 
opinions  which  were  held  to  be  treasonable  in  his  native 
country.  But  though  Rossetti  was  by  blood  three-quarters- 
Italian,  his  brother  says  "  he  liked  England  and  the  English 
better  than  any  other  country  or  nation,"  and  his  mind  was 
moulded  on  its  literature.  He  was  a  painter  as  well  as  a  poet, 
and  was  the  leading  spirit  of  the  famous  Pre-Raphaelite 
Brotherhood,  who  about  this  time  revolted  against  "the 
contemptible  and  even  scandalous  condition  of  British 
art."  The  first  pictures  inspired  by  their  ideals  were  ex- 
hibited in  the  galleries  of  1 849 ;  and  the  first  writings 
which  expressed  their  new  conceptions  of  art  were  printed 
in  a  magazine  called  The  Germ  which  appeared  and 
disappeared  in  the  early  months  of  1850.  It  did  not 
pay,  and  the  contributors  were  too  poor  to  maintain  it 
longer. 

In  1860  Rossetti  married  Elizabeth  Siddal,  whose  face 
looks  out  at  us  from  many  of  his  pictures.  In  less  than 
two  years  she  died  from  an  overdose  of  laudanum,  a  drug 


8o  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 


In  his 


she  was  in  the  habit  of  taking  to  soothe  her  nerves, 
grief  Rossetti  buried  the  MSS  of  his  poems  in  her  coffin ;  but 
about  seven  years  later  the  grave  was  opened  and  the  poems 
were  recovered.  In  1 86 1  The  Early  Italian  Poets,  afterwards 
entitled  Dante  and  His  Circle,  had  appeared.  It  was  how- 
ever by  the  poems  reclaimed  from  the  tomb  and  published 
in  1870  that  Rossetti  first  became  widely  known  to  English 
readers,  and  it  is  on  these  and  on  the  Ballads  and  Sonnets 
of  1 88 1  that  his  fame  in  literature  will  chiefly  depend.  But 
a  great  mistake  would  be  made  if  we  were  to  date  Rossetti's 
influence  from  1870.  Ruskin  was  right  in  pronouncing  him 
to  be  "  the  chief  intellectual  force  in  the  establishment  of  the 
Modern  Romantic  School  in  England  " ;  and  the  Modern 
Romantic  School  dates  from  about  1850.  The  explanation 
is  that  Rossetti  had  contributed  both  poetry  and  prose  to 
The  Germ  and  to  The  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Magazine, 
and  these  contributions,  as  well  as  other  poems  which 
remained  in  MS,  were  well  known  to  a  small  body  of 
highly-gifted  men,  including,  among  others,  William  Morris, 
Swinburne  and  Burne  Jones.  Besides,  Rossetti  had  another 
means  of  expression  in  the  art  of  painting.  Thus  he  was 
moulding  literature  and  art  for  at  least  twenty  years  before 
the  publication  of  his  earliest  volume  of  original  verse. 

What  struck  contemporaries  most  powerfully  in  the 
volume  of  1870  was  the  rich  sensuousness  of  the  verse. 
In  imparting  this  quality  to  his  poems  Rossetti  had  the 
high  authority  of  Milton,  who  declared  that  poetry  ought 
to  be  sensuous  as  well  as  simple  and  impassioned.  But 
the  sensuous  easily  passes  into  the  sensual,  or  may  be  mis- 
taken for  it.  Sometimes,  perhaps,  the  border  line  was  passed 
by  Rossetti ;  and  Robert  Buchanan,  one  of  his  critics,  fell 
into  the  mistake  of  believing  that  the  transition  was  made 
and  the  line  passed  habitually.  He  attacked  Rossetti  in  an 
article  entitled  The  Fleshly  School  of  Poetry ;  and,  though 
he  afterwards  repented  and  recanted,  it  was  not  so  easy  to 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   CENTURY  81 

annul  the  effect  of  his  bitter  words.  Buchanan  was  certainly 
wrong,  but  he  was  not  wholly  without  excuse.  Some  of 
Rossetti's  poems  are  luscious  in  the  extreme.  Beautiful  as 
are  the  sonnets  of  The  House  of  Life  individually,  they 
form,  when  taken  together  as  a  whole,  a  poem  whose  effect 
is  not  bracing,  but  enervating.  They  cloy  with  sweetness. 
Yet  on  the  other  hand  there  are  both  sonnets  and  other 
poems  by  Rossetti  whose  tone  is  in  the  highest  degree 
heroic.  Such,  among  the  sonnets,  are  Thomas  Chattertony 
The  Last  Three  from  Trafalgar,  and,  perhaps  greatest  of 
all,  the  noble  Lost  Days. 

It  is  strange  that,  artist  though  he  was  and  devotee  of 
the  religion  of  beauty,  Rossetti  occasionally  fell  into  the 
worst  errors  of  taste.  He  sometimes  stooped  to  what 
must  be  pronounced  no  better  than  literary  trickery,  and 
he  affords  here  and  there  examples  of  the  most  objection- 
able sort  of  "  poetic  diction."  "  The  smooth  black  stream 
that  makes  thy  whiteness  fair  "  are  the  words  in  which  he 
describes  the  ink  used  to  write  a  love-letter ;  and  there  was 
never  any  poetic  periphrasis,  even  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
more  absurd. 

In  his  later  work,  which  is  embodied  in  the  Ballads  and 
Sonnets  of  1881,  although  his  mind  was  disturbed  by  drugs 
and  his  character  distorted  by  suspicion  and  distrust  of  his 
best  friends,  Rossetti's  inspiration  did  not  fail.  But  it  some- 
what changed  its  character.  In  the  earlier  poetry  there  was 
little  or  no  narrative,  white  the  later  collection  includes 
a  number  of  well-told  stories.  The  White  Ship  is  a  ballad 
of  the  tragic  death  of  the  children  of  Henry  I,  and  The 
Kings  Tragedy  is  a  story  of  James  I  of  Scotland.  No 
attempt  is  made  to  imitate  the  genuine  popular  ballad. 
These  pieces  are  frankly  modern  and  are  unmistakably  the 
product  of  a  sophisticated  age.  But  as  narratives  they  are 
as  effective  as  the  old  ballads  themselves.  In  the  later 
volume  there  is  a  larger  proportion  than  in  the  earlier 
w.  6 


82  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

of  poems  which  might  be  described  as  virile,  and  there  is 
far  less  excuse  for  such  an  attack  as  that  which  Robert 
Buchanan  had  made. 

In  some  ways  we  shall  understand  Dante  Rossetti 
better  when  we  have  followed  the  working  of  the  same 
spirit  in  his  gifted  sister  Christina  Rossetti  (1830 — 1894). 
Though  both  were  influenced  by  the  Oxford  Movement,  its 
influence  on  Christina  was  far  deeper  than  its  influence  on 
Dante  Rossetti.  To  her  the  Church  of  the  middle  ages, 
with  all  its  ordinances  and  its  ceremonies,  was  a  reality,  and 
her  worship  of  it  the  moving  force  of  her  life.  Her  poems 
are  chiefly  devotional.  The  mystery  of  death  and  the 
sadness  of  life  are  ever  before  her  mind.  Renunciation 
and  resignation  are  the  notes  she  loves.  Her  sonnet- 
sequence,  Monna  Innominata,  treats  of  love  which  ends 
unhappily;  in  Looking  Forward  she  asks  for  "poppies 
brimmed  with  sleepy  death  " ;  in  The  Convent  Threshold  and 
Amor  Mundi  she  writes  of  the  smoothness  of  the  path  of 
sin  and  the  difficulty  of  reform.  Her  melancholy  Despised 
and  Rejected  ends  with  the  despairing  moan, 

"And  on  my  door 
The  mark  of  blood  for  evermore." 

There  is  monotony  in  her  melancholy,  but  her  sincerity  is 
impressive.  Not  all  her  work  however  is  in  grey  shadows. 
Goblin  Market^  No,  thank  you,  John,  and  The  Prince's 
Progress,  though  the  last  ends  sadly,  have  cheerful  touches, 
and  they  show  much  of  the  delicate  purity  and  simplicity 
of  her  mind.  And  if  in  some  of  her  religious  verse  there  is 
a  gloom  due  to  the  sense  of  sin,  elsewhere  there  is  an 
exultation  which  has  caused  certain  of  her  pieces  to  be 
described  as  "  the  national  hymns  of  Heaven." 

Christina  Rossetti  stands  in  contrast  to  her  brother  at 
all  points.  He  is  sensuous  and  gorgeous  while  her  verse  is 
refined  and  simple.  She  stands  straining  her  eyes  towards 
heaven,  while  he  makes  the  Blessed  Damozel  gaze  back 


THE   TURN    OF  THE   CENTURY  83 

with  yearning  from  heaven  to  earth.  To  him  the  Oxford 
Movement  meant  a  revival  of  colour  and  beauty,  to  her  it 
meant  greater  opportunity  for  sacrifice  and  suffering.  Her 
attitude  was  that  of  Newman.  Her  brother  found  in  the 
middle  ages  merely  material  for  the  art  that  was  his  religion. 

Another  writer  of  this  group  is  Coventry  Patmore 
(1823 — 1896),  but  in  his  faith  he  is  nearer  to  Christina 
than  to  Dante  Rossetti.  Patmore's  fluency  in  writing  has 
led  both  himself  and  his  critics  astray.  His  poem,  The 
Angel  in  the  House  >  was  to  celebrate  wedded  love;  and 
he  boasted  that  here  he,  the  latest  of  poets,  had  found 
"the  first  of  themes."  A  less  self-confident  man  would 
have  paused  before  pronouncing  a  subject  never  sung 
before  "  the  first  of  themes."  Patmore  had  no  misgivings. 
But  the  first  part  did  not  get  beyond  The  Betrothal;  The 
Espousals  ended  the  second  part ;  and  after  Faithful  for 
Ever  there  is  silence  until  three  years  later,  when  there  was 
a  sequel,  The  Victories  of  Love.  The  whole  work  tended 
to  show  that  "  the  first  of  themes  "  is  in  reality  ill  suited  for 
poetry.  Patmore  used  up  many  precious  years  in  this 
attempt.  He  probably  became  conscious  of  the  mistake 
he  had  made,  for  his  Odes  and  his  greatest  poem  Amelia 
are  as  unlike  as  possible  to  his  first  scheme. 

Contemporary  with  Patmore  was  Sydney  Dobell  (1824 — 
1874),  the  chief  of  the  spasmodic  poets,  whose  grandfather, 
Samuel  Thompson,  had  founded  the  religious  sect  known 
to  its  own  congregations  as  the  Church  of  God,  but 
called  by  outsiders  the  sect  of  Free-thinking  Christians. 
The  founder  had  the  unusual  experience  of  being  cast  out 
from  the  church  of  his  own  creation.  But  his  grandson, 
Sydney  Dobell,  was  recognised  as  the  child  born  to  be  the 
guiding  star  and  chief  priest  of  the  community.  There 
was  no  school  or  university  in  England  fit  to  be  trusted 
with  the  training  of  the  future  leader  of  "  the  Church  of 
God."  It  is  a  remarkable  proof  of  Dobell's  mental  vitality 

6—2 


84  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

and  strength  of  character  that,  in  spite  of  all  this  unwhole- 
some worship  and  adulation,  he  lost  little  except  the  power 
of  self-criticism.  His  life  was  probably  shortened,  and  his 
health  and  nerves  certainly  suffered,  by  the  strain  of  ex- 
citement and  religious  emotion.  Ultimately  he  grew  out 
of  "  the  Church  of  God,"  and  shook  himself  free  from 
its  teaching.  An  interest  in  European  politics  filled  the 
vacant  place.  It  was  a  time  of  wide-spread  unrest,  and 
Dobell's  imagination  was  stirred  by  the  revolt  of  Hungary 
and  Italy.  His  poem  The  Roman  was  like  a  trumpet-call 
to  the  political  exiles,  and  it  drew  together  at  the  poet's 
home  at  Coxhorne  "  the  Society  of  the  Friends  of  Italy." 
Dobell's  later  poems,  The  Magyars  New-  Year-Eve,  and  The 
Youth  of  England  to  Garibaldi's  Legion,  are  also  inspired 
by  the  rising  of  the  nations  against  the  tyranny  of  kings 
and  popes. 

His  second  poem,  Balder,  is  a  work  of  vast  design. 
He  proposed  in  the  preface  "  to  treat  of  the  progress  of  a 
Human  Being  from  Doubt  to  Faith,  from  Chaos  to  Order." 
But  his  design  was  never  accomplished,  only  the  first  of  the 
three  parts  of  which  it  was  to  consist  having  ever  been 
written.  The  poem  has  been  likened  to  Ibsen's  Brand,  and 
it  has  points  of  resemblance  to  Browning's  Paracelsus  also. 
It  was  not  well  received.  Dobell  however  was  indifferent 
to  criticism,  and  he  unfortunately  believed  that  "poetry 
should  roll  from  the  heart  as  tears  from  the  eye  unbidden." 
Hence  he  never  checked  the  flow,  and  rarely  revised  what 
he  had  written. 

It  was  W.  E.  Aytoun  who  applied  to  the  group  of 
which  Dobell  was  chief  the  witty  nickname  of  the  Spas- 
modic School.  Another  member  of  it  was  Alexander 
Smith  (1829 — 1867),  the  son  of  a  pattern-designer,  who, 
after  a  boyhood  and  youth  of  poverty  and  difficulty,  won 
at  twenty-four  a  sudden  and  brilliant  success  with  a  volume 
of  Poems.  He  followed  this  up  with  City  Poems  four  years 


THE   LATER   PRE-RAPHAELITES  85 

later,  in  which  he  showed  still  higher  ability.  But  the 
reaction  had  come,  and  Smith  was  punished  for  over-praise 
in  the  first  instance,  for  which  he  was  in  no  way  responsible, 
by  subsequent  neglect  and  depreciation.  This  led  him  in 
the  latter  part  of  his  life  to  prefer  prose  to  verse.  He  has 
written  both  with  great  charm,  and,  in  spite  of  neglect,  he 
is  a  true,  and  in  a  few  pieces  almost  a  great  poet.  The 
piece  entitled  Glasgow  is  one  of  the  finest  ever  dedicated 
to  a  British  city,  and  the  lyric  Barbara  well  deserves  a 
place  in  our  anthologies.  So  too  for  the  sake  of  some 
paragraphs  in  A  Lark's  Flight,  one  of  the  essays  in  the 
prose  volume  entitled  Dreamthorp,  he  deserves  a  place 
among  the  masters  of  English  prose. 


§  6.     The  Later  Pre-Raphaelites 

Contemporary  with  the  Pre-Raphaelites  of  the  last 
chapter  and  one  of  the  intimate  friends  of  Rossetti  was 
William  Morris  (1834 — 1896).  He  was  the  son  of  a  man 
of  means  and  received  the  usual  education  of  an  English 
gentleman.  Marlborough  was  his  school  and  Oxford  his 
university.  At  the  latter  he  met  Burne  Jones  the  artist. 
Both  men  intended  to  become  clergymen,  but  art  drew  them 
away  from  the  Church.  They  were  attracted  by  the  ideals 
of  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  whose  enthusiasm  for  the  beauties 
of  mediaevalism  Morris  shared.  He  was  a  man  who  played 
many  parts  in  life,  and  when  he  calls  himself  "the  idle 
singer  of  an  empty  day"  he  does  less  than  justice  to  him- 
self. His  biographer,  quoting  from  the  Fasti  Britannici, 
sums  him  up  as  "  Poet,  artist,  manufacturer,  and  socialist, 
author  of  The  Earthly  Paradise"  and  adds  that  in  this  terse, 
unirnpassioned  entry  we  find  a  description  which  Morris 
would  himself  have  accepted  as  substantially  accurate.  We 


86  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

are  chiefly  concerned  with  the  literary  side  of  Morris,  but 
it  is  interesting  to  recall  how  he  came  to  turn  his  mind  to 
the  making  of  furniture.  When  he  married  and  wanted  to 
build  and  furnish  a  house,  the  impossibility  of  finding  for 
money  anything  but  ugliness  was  driven  home  to  him,  and 
this  experience  led  to  the  formation  of  the  firm  of  Morris 
&  Co.  He  was  the  guiding  genius,  the  artist  who  chose 
the  colours  and  designed  the  papers  for  walls  and  the 
curtains  and  all  the  other  forms  of  house  decoration  which 
came  to  push  aside  the  hideous  fashions  of  the  time.  The 
practical  knowledge  of  industry  thus  acquired  opened  his 
eyes  to  the  want  of  beauty  and  lack  of  comfort  in  the  lives 
of  the  working  classes,  on  whose  behalf  he,  of  all  the 
writers  of  the  time,  was  the  most  strenuous  labourer.  The 
thirteenth  century,  although  he  saw  its  imperfections,  had 
for  him  the  ideal  workshops ;  for  then  every  labourer  was 
an  artist  and  took  pleasure  in  the  beautiful  objects  he 
made.  Morris  would  have  reproduced  this  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  It  was  not  his  plan  to  push  men  out  of  the 
industrial  ranks  in  which  they  were  born  and  move  them 
up  to  a  higher  social  class — the  only  true  reform,  he  held, 
was  for  each  class  to  keep  its  best  members  in  it.  In  the 
guilds  of  the  middle  ages  he  thought  he  saw  the  proper 
recognition  of  knowledge  and  merit  and  the  proper 
organisation  for  the  protection  of  the  workmen  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  quality  of  their  work. 

Morris's  writings,  like  his  practical  work,  drew  inspira- 
tion from  another  time  and  also  from  another  land  than  his 
own.  In  his  early  life  we  have  the  Arthurian  poem  T/ie 
Defence  of  Guenevere,  which  has  far  more  of  the  real  spirit 
of  its  period  than  Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King ;  later,  in 
The  Life  and  Death  of  Jason  and  in  The  Earthly  Paradise^ 
there  is  much  of  the  spirit  of  Chaucer.  The  last-named 
is  a  great  collection  of  stories.  The  plan  is  similar  to 
that  pursued  in  The  Canterbury  Tales,  but  we  miss  the 


THE   LATER   PRE-RAPHAELITES  87 

spirited  narrative  and  the  humour  of  its  fourteenth  century 
model.  There  are  42,000  lines  in  it,  and  neither  the 
length  nor  the  dreamy  tone  of  the  poem  accords  with  the 
character  of  an  active  practical  man  of  affairs,  such  as 
Morris  showed  himself  in  the  business  of  life. 

After  Chaucer,  Morris  found  interest  in  almost  none  of 
the  writers  of  the  Italian  Renascence  or  the  Elizabethans, 
and  hardly  any  of  the  poetry  between  them  and  the 
revival  of  romance  appealed  to  him.  But  his  love  of  the 
mystical  and  of  the  vague  dreaminess  of  mediaeval  romance 
did  not  prevent  him  from  developing  enthusiasm  for  the 
simple  direct  epic  poetry  of  the  Scandinavian  poets. 
Carly  le  in  his  Heroes  and  Hero-  Worship  had  already  turned 
the  attention  of  Englishmen  to  the  poetry  of  the  Norsemen 
and  had  pointed  out  how  closely  it  was  related  to  ourselves. 
The  Lovers  of  Gudrun  was  written  before  Morris  had  been 
to  Iceland.  He  went  there  in  1871  and  then  again  in 
1873,  and  was  much  more  delighted  with  the  land  to  which 
the  northern  Sagas  belong  than  with  Italy,  which  he 
visited  in  the  time  between  his  two  northern  journeys. 
The  outcome  of  the  enthusiasm  aroused  by  these  two 
pilgrimages  was  the  northern  epic  Sigurd  the  Volsung^  his 
finest  piece.  In  this  the  narrative  is  spirited  and  beautiful, 
and  it  has  none  of  the  monotony  of  the  mediaeval  stories 
of  Morris. 

Sigurd  the  Volsung  was  the  last  of  Morris's  long  poems. 
He  had  previously  tried  his  hand  at  mediaeval  drama  in 
the  morality  play  of  Love  is  Enough-,  or  the  Freeing  of 
Pharamond ;  and  though  it  was  a  failure,  Sir  Peter  Harp- 
dons  End  proves  that  he  had  some  dramatic  instinct. 
One  of  the  most  impressive  of  the  characteristics  of  Morris 
is  that  he  is  more  at  home  in  the  distant  ages  which  he 
recreated  by  his  imagination,  and  in  alien  countries,  than 
in  his  own.  His  whole  life  is  an  effort  to  bring  back  the 
spirit  that  is  dead,  not  to  copy  it  but  to  make  it  live  again ; 


88  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

and  at  this  point  his  manifold  work  as  artist,  manufacturer, 
socialist,  and  poet  finds  unity.  "Time  was,"  he  says, "when 
everybody  that  made  anything  made  a  work  of  art  besides 
a  useful  piece  of  goods,  and  it  gave  them  pleasure  to  make  it" 

Though  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne  (1837 — 1909)  was 
only  three  years  younger  than  Morris,  he  seems  to  belong 
to  a  time  much  nearer  to-day  than  Morris  or  their 
other  friend  Burne  Jones.  He  was  educated  at  Eton  and 
at  Balliol  College,  Oxford.  Lady  Burne  Jones  gives  a 
striking  and  attractive  description  of  Swinburne  in  his 
youth.  "  His  appearance  was  very  unusual  and  in  some 
ways  beautiful,  for  his  hair  was  glorious  in  abundance  and 

colour,  and  his  eye  indescribably  fine He  was  restless 

beyond  words,  scarcely  standing  still  at  all,  and  almost 
dancing  as  he  walked,  while  even  in  sitting  he  moved 
continually,  seeming  to  keep  time  by  a  swift  movement 
of  the  hands  at  the  wrists  and  sometimes  of  the  feet  also, 
with  some  inner  rhythm  of  excitement.  He  was  courteous 
and  affectionate  and  unsuspicious,  and  faithful  beyond  most 
people  to  those  he  really  loved.  The  biting  wit  which 
filled  his  talk  so  as  at  times  to  leave  his  hearers  dumb 
with  amazement  always  spared  one  thing,  and  that  was 
an  absent  friend." 

The  first  book  published  by  Swinburne,  The  Queen 
Mother:  Rosamond,  appeared  when  he  was  twenty-three. 
It  passed  unnoticed,  butAtalanta  in  Cafydon,  his  next  work, 
which  came  out  five  years  later,  had  a  very  different  recep- 
tion. Tennyson  shook  his  head  over  it  and  said  cold  things, 
Browning  frankly  said  it  was  "a  fuzz  of  words";  but  the 
majority  of  critics  felt  that  since  the  days  of  Milton  no 
such  drama  in  classic  form  had  appeared.  The  melody  of 
the  verse  and  the  variety  of  the  word-music  opened  the  eyes 
of  the  world  to  the  capacities  of  the  English  language  for 
lyric  measures,  and  the  youth  of  the  singer  led  men  to  form 
high  hopes  for  the  work  that  was  to  come.  A  half-playful 


THE   LATER   PRE-RAPHAELITES  89 

wildness  led  him  in  his  later  publication,  Poems  and 
Ballads,  to  print  some  objectionable  verses.  Public  opinion 
was  shocked,  and  Moxon,  the  publisher,  would  have  nothing 
more  to  do  with  Swinburne.  Besides  the  obnoxious  pieces 
there  were  some  very  beautiful  poems  in  this  collection, 
which  were  passed  over  unnoticed  in  the  storm  of  abuse 
visited  upon  the  objectionable  verses. 

Swinburne's  work  may  be  classified  in  two  chief  divisions 
— the  dramas  and  the  poems,  the  latter  being  chiefly  lyrical. 
In  his  youth  his  great  desire  was  to  be  a  dramatist,  and  in 
the  dedicatory  epistle  prefixed  to  the  collected  poems  he 
avows  that  his  strongest  ambition  is  "to  do  something 
worth  doing,  and  not  utterly  unworthy  of  a  young  country- 
man of  Marlowe  the  teacher  and  Webster  the  pupil  of 
Shakespeare,  in  the  line  of  work  which  those  three  poets 
had  left  as  a  possibly  unattainable  example  for  ambitious 
Englishmen."  It  proved  unattainable  by  Swinburne.  Ata- 
lanta  in  Calydon  owed  its  success  to  its  Greek  setting  and 
to  the  ringing  music  of  its  choruses  ;  and  the  three  dramatic 
versions  of  the  romance  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  Chastelard, 
Bothwell  and  Mary  Stuart,  won  little  or  no  appreciation 
from  the  critics.  But  Swinburne  still  regarded  the  drama 
as  the  highest  form  of  creative  art,  and  he  could  not  believe 
that  his  powers  were  not  equal  to  its  production.  His  next 
attempt  was  Marino  Faliero,  then  came  Locrine  and  Rosa- 
mund, Qtieen  of  the  Lombards.  All  this  work  suffers  from 
want  of  restraint.  No  audience  can  be  found  willing  to 
listen  to  actors  delivering  speeches  hundreds  of  lines 
long. 

The  great  glory  of  Swinburne's  poetry  is  its  music.  His 
verse  came  without  effort  and  ran  on  as  easily  as  of  the 
song  of  a  bird  in  the  bush.  It  is  even  too  facile,  and  this 
excessive  facility  is  the  point  of  H.  D.  Traill's  delightful 
parody,  in  which  an  amazed  world  asks,  "  Master,  how  is 
it  done  ? "  and  the  poet  answers : 


90  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

"Let  this  thing  serve  you  to  know: 
When  the  river  of  rhymes  should  flow 
I  turn  on  the  tap,  and  they  come." 

The  two  long  poems,  Tristram  of  Lyonesse  and  The 
Tale  of  Balin,  are  interesting  as  attempts  to  re-tell  the 
mediaeval  tales  with  more  fidelity  to  the  spirit  of  the 
originals  than  had  been  shown  by  Tennyson.  Here  and 
there  they  are  highly  poetical.  But  they  are  interesting 
also  because  they  confirm  the  impression  left  by  the  dramas 
that  the  genius  of  Swinburne  was  essentially  lyrical.  As 
wholes  they  are  unsatisfactory,  for  the  poet  had  not  in 
great  measure  the  gift  of  narrative,  any  more  than  he  had 
the  gift  of  dramatic  conception  and  construction. 

Swinburne,  like  Byron  and  Shelley,  was  the  champion 
of  the  distressed,  the  poet  of  liberty.  The  struggle  of  Italy 
for  freedom,  the  oppressive  tyranny  the  Russian  nobles 
exercised  over  their  serfs,  neglected  genius,  unrecognised 
merit,  all  stirred  him  profoundly.  The  Hungarian  patriot, 
Louis  Kossuth,  is  celebrated  in  one  of  the  finest  of  English 
sonnets  because,  as  Swinburne  says, 

"His  hand  is  raised  to  smite 
Men's  heads  abased  before  the  Muscovite." 

Yet  he  was  an  enthusiastic  and  hopeful  imperialist,  and 
since  the  death  of  Tennyson  there  has  been  no  poet  so 
patriotic  as  Swinburne.  His  verse  is  filled  with  the  im- 
perialism which  longs  "  to  keep  our  noble  England  whole  " 
— a  republican  England  he  had  in  his  mind,  the  country 
ruled  by  Cromwell,  not  by  Victoria. 

Swinburne  wrote  prose  as  well  as  verse,  and  for  natural 
gifts  of  criticism  he  was  unsurpassed.  But  unfortunately 
his  want  of  self-restraint  told  more  seriously  against  him 
here  than  in  his  poetry.  His  panegyrics  are  unmeasured, 
he  seems  to  know  no  degree  of  comparison  but  the  superla- 
tive. Again  and  again  however — for  example  in  the  cases 


THE   LATER   PRE-RAPHAELITES  91 

of  Blake  and  of  FitzGerald — he  did  invaluable  service  to 
genius  unrecognised. 

Perhaps  John  Byrne  Leicester  Warren,  Lord  de  Tabley 
(1835 — 1895),  may  also,  though  with  some  reserve,  be 
classed  with  the  later  Pre-Raphaelites.  Though  he  was 
senior  to  Swinburne  he  was  powerfully  influenced  by  the 
younger  man,  and  through  him  by  Rossetti.  He  was  a 
man  with  many  interests,  who  attained  a  certain  mastery 
in  all  he  tried.  In  botany  and  in  the  sciences  that  treat  of 
coins  and  shells,  as  well  as  in  all  that  relates  to  books,  his 
learning  was  wide  and  deep.  Yet  his  unusual  knowledge 
did  not  make  Warren  a  pedant,  and  although  his  poetry 
contains  allusions  to  a  great  variety  of  birds  and  flowers, 
there  is  always  a  pictorial  reason  for  their  place  in  his 
verse.  His  mind  developed  late.  His  earliest  volumes 
contain  little  that  is  worthy  of  remembrance.  It  was 
not  until  he  published  Rehearsals  and  Searching  the  Net, 
many  years  after  he  had  begun  to  write,  that  his  genius 
came  into  full  flower.  In  the  interval  however  he  had 
written  Philoctetes  and  Orestes,  the  finest  dramas  of  the 
classical  type,  except  Swinburne's,  in  our  recent  litera- 
ture, He  was  never  popular.  Interest  was  aroused  for 
a  moment,  after  many  years  of  indifference,  by  the  re- 
publication  of  a  selection  of  his  best  pieces  under  the 
title  Poems,  Dramatic  and  Lyric.  But  the  interest  soon 
subsided ;  a  second  series  was  received  with  compara- 
tive coldness ;  and  the  poet,  now  Lord  de  Tabley,  died 
disappointed. 

Lord  de  Tabley,  though  a  strong  and  original  poet,  was 
very  sensitive  to  the  human  influences  with  which  he  came 
in  touch.  Perhaps,  as  has  already  been  suggested,  the 
most  obvious  is  the  influence  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  which 
is  seen  in  such  poems  as  the  Hymn  to  Astarte ;  but  he 
himself  declared  that  Tennyson  appealed  to  him,  both  in 
his  early  and  in  his  later  life,  more  than  any  other  poet ; 


92  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

and  the  marks  of  Tennyson's  influence  are  visible  to  every 
student.  Then  again,  both  in  form  and  in  substance  some 
of  his  finest  pieces  bear  the  stamp  of  Browning.  There 
is  certainly  something  of  Browning  in  the  masterly  dramatic 
monologue  of  Jael,  which  many  think  the  finest  thing 
De  Tabley  ever  wrote.  But  if  De  Tabley  took  hints,  even 
as  Shakespeare  did,  like  Shakespeare  also  he  invariably 
added  the  incommunicable  something  of  his  own  which 
proclaims  the  true  poet.  In  our  recent  literary  history 
there  are  few  things  more  to  be  regretted  than  the  fact  that 
neglect  and  lack  of  appreciation  chilled  and  silenced  him. 

§  7.      The  Celtic  Poets 

It  has  been  necessary  in  an  earlier  part  to  notice  that 
Celticism  which  is  one  phase  of  the  remarkable  growth  of 
national  spirit  characteristic  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
This  Celtic  revival  went  on  contemporaneously  with  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  movement  and  was  intimately  associated 
with  it.  Burne  Jones  the  painter  and  William  Morris  both 
came  of  Welsh  blood.  The  latter  however  was  Teutonic 
rather  than  Celtic  in  sentiment,  and  it  was  the  Scandinavian, 
not  the  Welsh  race  he  selected  for  glorification.  Sir  Lewis 
Morris  (1833 — 1907),  also  a  Welshman,  turned  for  inspira- 
tion to  another  world  and  gained  great  popularity  by  his 
treatment  of  it.  His  Epic  of  Hades  has  gone  through  forty 
editions.  His  Songs  of  two  Worlds^  Songs  Unsung  and 
Songs  of  Britain  have  also  been  bought  and  read  by 
thousands.  But  his  work  is  not  of  high  merit,  and  his 
facility  in  verse-making  lowered  his  standard. 

Arthur  O'Shaughnessy  (1844 — 1881)  and  Aubrey  de 
Vere  (1814 — 1902),  son  of  the  dramatist  already  noticed, 
are  two  Celts  from  Ireland.  O'Shaughnessy  was  a  man 
of  sensitive  poetic  temperament  who  embodied  a  little  of 
Swinburne,  a  little  of  Rossetti  and  a  little  of  William 


THE   CELTIC   POETS  93 

Morris  in  his  work,  imitating  unfortunately  their  faults 
rather  than  their  graces.  De  Vere  was  Celtic  by  birth, 
but  his  poetry  recalls  Wordsworth  too  much  to  be  in  any 
sense  typical  of  the  race.  He  has  several  volumes  treating 
of  a  great  variety  of  subjects,  and  some  of  these  belong 
to  Ireland — The  Sisters,  Inisfail  and  other  Poems,  The 
Legends  of  St  Patrick •,  and  The  Foray  of  Queen  Meave. 
He  has  written  dramas  too — Alexander  the  Great  and 
St  Thomas  of  Canterbury.  But  everywhere  he  is  too 
diffuse  and  sometimes  he  is  obscure  to  his  reader,  as 
possibly  he  was  to  himself. 

Perhaps  the  most  imposing  figure  among  the  Celts 
is  Robert  Buchanan  (1841  — 1901),  who  combined  in  his 
own  person  the  blood  of  Scotland,  Wales  and  England. 
Though  born  in  England,  he  was  the  most  Scottish  of  all 
our  recent  poets.  Even  in  many  of  his  poems  in  pure 
English  we  recognise  the  northern  landmarks.  The 
scenery,  the  sailors,  the  peasants,  the  shepherds,  their 
mothers,  wives  and  sisters  have  all  the  characteristics  of 
the  folk  who  live  north  of  the  Tweed,  or  at  any  rate  north 
of  the  H umber.  Such  scenes  and  such  characters  fill  Idyls 
and  Legends  of  Inverburn  and  North  Coast  Poems  \  and  in 
these  we  see  one  aspect  of  the  poet.  We  see  another  in 
London  Poems.  Their  realism  is  powerful  indeed,  but  less 
beautiful  than  that  of  the  poems  of  the  North  Country;  yet 
even  in  the  London  Poems  we  are  lit  and  warmed  by  gleams 
of  imagination  that  transfigure  the  realism. 

Buchanan's  father  was  a  Glasgow  journalist,  a  sceptic 
and  a  follower  of  Robert  Owen  the  socialist.  The  boy's 
religious  experiences  were  not  ordinary.  He  was  brought 
up  without  biblical  instruction,  and  it  was  not  until  he 
reached  manhood  that  he  became  familiar  with  the  creeds 
of  the  Churches.  He  never  acquired  any  definite  faith,  but 
he  tried  to  make  himself  sympathise  with  the  Christian 
point  of  view.  The  City  of  Dream,  an  allegory  dedicated 


94  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

"  to  the  sainted  spirit "  of  John  Bunyan,  gives  a  picture  of 
Buchanan's  confused  search  for  a  heavenly  kingdom.     The 
Wandering  Jew,   another   poem   of  this   class,   gives   an 
original  and  impressive  description  of  a  Christ  grown  old, 
grey  and  weary;  a  Christ  who  is  bowed  and  broken  by  the 
wicked  deeds  which  his  followers  have  done  in  his  name. 
This  poem  was  "his  favourite  child."     He  began  it  in  1866, 
kept  it  by  him  for  thirty-three  years,  and  published  it  near 
the  end  of  his  life.     But  many  critics  regard   The  Book 
of  Orm  as  Buchanan's  highest  flight.      Here  he  puts  off 
realism  and  appears  in  the  character  of  a  mystic,  because 
he   considers   that  mysticism  is  the  peculiar  gift  of  the 
Celt,  to  whom  he  dedicates  the  poem.     The  work  was  too 
ambitious,  and  Buchanan  was  hardly  profound  enough  to 
deal  with  a  subject  so  difficult.    It  is  a  long  jump  from  this 
solemn  poem  to  the  rollicking  laughter  of  The  Wedding 
of  Shon  Maclean  and  Buchanan's  other  humorous  pieces. 
Except    Mr  Rudyard  Kipling  no  recent  poet  has  shown 
such  a  great  gift  of  humour  as  Buchanan;  nor  is  there  any 
one  who  has  given  examples  of  powerful  work  in  so  many 
different  ways.     Had  he  been  able  to  fuse  the  elements 
of  his  greatness,  his  place  in   literature  would  be  in  the 
company  of  the  giants. 

§  8.     The  remaining  Poets 

Not  only  have  the  poets  of  the  nineteenth  century 
expressed  almost  every  shade  of  belief  and  unbelief,  but 
even  the  misery  of  blank  despair  has  found  a  singer  in 
James  Thomson  (1834 — 1882).  He  began  his  life  and 
ended  it  in  misfortune.  His  father  was  stricken  with 
paralysis  when  the  boy  was  six  years  old,  and  the  duty 
of  providing  for  the  home  fell  upon  the  mother,  "  a  deeply 
religious  woman  of  the  Irvingite  faith,  whose  nature, 
unlike  that  of  her  husband,  seems  to  have  been  of  a 


THE    REMAINING   POETS  95 

melancholy  cast."  Possibly  Thomson  inherited  his  pes- 
simism from  her.  Some  however  trace  it  to  the  death  of 
a  beautiful  girl  with  whom  he  was  in  love.  In  Ireland  he 
met  the  politician  Charles  Bradlaugh,  who  became  his 
best  friend.  Thomson  at  a  later  date  wrote  some  of  his 
finest  pieces  as  contributions  to  Bradlaugh's  paper,  The 
National  Reformer.  His  greatest  poem,  The  City  of  Dreadful 
Night,  is  probably  the  gloomiest  in  the  language,  though 
Insomnia  rivals  it.  But  Thomson  could  be  bright  and 
genial  as  well  as  gloomy,  and  this  lighter  mood  finds 
expression  in  The  Lord  of  the  Castle  of  Indolence,  and  those 
Idylls  of 'Cockaigne ',  Sunday  up  the  River  and  Sunday  at 
Hampstead.  Even  near  the  end  of  his  life  he  remained 
capable  of  mirth.  When  he  had  quarrelled  with  his  patron 
Bradlaugh  and  cut  himself  adrift  from  the  means  of  living, 
Thomson  suddenly  burst  into  the  bright  and  beautiful 
verses  Richard  Forest's  Midsummer  Night,  He  heard  her 
Sing  and  At  Belvoir.  But  this  was  the  last  flash  before 
the  darkness.  On  June  3rd  of  the  same  year  1882,  after 
four  terrible  weeks  of  "  intemperance,  homelessness,  and 
desperation,"  this  gifted  poet  died  in  University  College 
Hospital,  London,  whither  he  had  been  carried  from  the 
home  of  his  blind  friend,  the  poet  Philip  Bourke  Marston. 

Contemporary  with  Buchanan  and  Thomson  there  was 
a  small  group  of  women  singers  who  each  left  good  work. 
Adelaide  Procter  (1825— 1864),  the  gifted  "  elf-child  "  of  the 
poet  Barry  Cornwall,  has  left  behind  her  verses  which 
Charles  Dickens  praised  and  accepted  for  his  Household 
Words.  Her  Legends  and  Lyrics  were  more  in  demand 
ten  years  after  the  death  of  their  author  than  the  poetry 
of  any  writer  then  living  except  Tennyson.  But  in  spite 
of  this  popularity  Adelaide  Procter  never  wrote  verse  of 
the  same  high  order  and  strength  as  that  which  we  find  in 
High  Tide  on  the  Coast  of  Lincolnshire  by  Jean  Ingelow 
(1820 — 1897),  whose  Poems,  published  in  1863,  ran  into  a 


96  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

fourth  edition  before  the  close  of  the  year.  Her  Echo  and 
the  Ferry,  Requiescat  in  Pace  and  Divided  are  fine  pieces. 
Though  she  is  not  a  great  poet,  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that,  among  women  poets,  she  is  surpassed  only  by 
Mrs  Browning,  Christina  Rossetti,  Emily  Bronte  and 
Augusta  Webster  (1837—1894). 

Mrs  Webster's  work  is  little  known,  but  for  sheer 
strength  her  only  rival  in  this  group  is  Emily  Bronte.  So 
great  is  she,  indeed,  that  some  of  those  who  have  studied 
her  think  that  to  her,  rather  than  to  Mrs  Browning  or  to 
Christina  Rossetti,  ought  to  be  assigned  the  primacy  among 
English  poetesses,  and  an  able  critic  has  even  pronounced 
her  drama  The  Sentence  to  be  "  one  of  the  masterpieces  of 
European  drama."  But  Mrs  Webster's  most  characteristic, 
and  perhaps,  notwithstanding  this  opinion,  her  best  work,  is 
to  be  found  in  the  dramatic  monologues  of  the  collections 
entitled  Dramatic  Studies  and  Portraits.  She  was  influenced 
by  Browning,  and  the  best  of  her  monologues  are  worthy 
of  comparison  even  with  his. 

There  remain  four  poets  who  lived  at  this  time,  and 
who  cannot  be  linked  with  each  other  or  classed  with  any 
other  group,  though  they  may  have  special  relations  with 
one  or  other  of  their  contemporaries.  Thus  William 
Ernest  Henley  (1849 — J9°3)  was  associated  with  R.  L. 
Stevenson  in  the  writing  of  plays;  and  our  first  picture 
of  the  poet  comes  from  the  pen  of  Stevenson,  who  visited 
him  when  he  was  a  patient  in  an  Edinburgh  hospital, 
and  found  him  "  sitting  up  in  bed  with  his  hair  and  beard 
all  tangled,  and  talking  as  cheerfully  as  if  he  had  been  in 
a  king's  palace,  or  the  great  King's  palace  of  the  blue  air." 
The  long  months  passed  on  this  sickbed  not  only  found 
for  Henley  a  friend,  but  also  gave  him  a  subject  for  his 
poems,  In  Hospital.  A  publisher  was  harder  to  come  by. 
The  poet  says  that  these  verses  were  rejected  by  every 
editor  of  standing  in  London.  The  editors  were  wrong; 


THE   REMAINING   POETS  97 

yet  the  fact  that  afterwards  three  magazines  failed  under 
his  direction  shows  that  in  the  commercial  sense  Henley 
was  somewhat  dangerous.  He  was  daring,  forceful  and 
original.  But  he  had  not  the  gift  of  the  story-teller,  and 
it  is  not  certain  that  without  aid  he  could  have  written 
plays.  Given  a  subject  like  the  hospital  however,  or  the 
streets  of  London,  or  the  glory  of  his  country,  Henley  could 
write  splendid  verse. 

Manly,  vigorous,  simple-hearted,  original,  Henley  forms 
a  striking  contrast  to  Owen  Meredith,  the  nom  de  guerre  of 
the  second  Lord  Lytton  (1831 — 1891).  Lytton  had  little 
originality  of  mind,  and  his  work  is  a  mirror  which  reflects 
the  society  in  which  he  moved.  His  genius  was  so  receptive 
that  there  is  scarcely  a  contemporary  of  note  of  whom  echoes 
may  not  be  found  in  his  verse.  He  was  not  a  mere  copyist, 
but  his  mind,  like  the  clear  surface  of  still  water,  reflected 
every  shadow  that  crossed  it.  Clytemnestra  was  the  first 
of  a  series  of  volumes  of  poetry  which,  in  spite  of  high 
office  as  Viceroy  of  India  and  Ambassador  of  England 
in  Paris,  he  contrived  to  make  tolerably  long.  He  was 
among  the  most  popular  poets  of  his  time;  but  during  the 
last  generation  his  fame  has  greatly  declined. 

One  of  the  characteristics  of  the  later  Victorian  era  was 
a  growing  interest  in  the  literature  of  the  East.  In  Serbski 
Pesme  Lytton  made  a  contribution  to  this  interest.  But 
Edwin  Arnold  (1832 — 1904)  looked  farther  East,  and  made 
the  satisfaction  of  this  interest  his  principal  literary  task.  He 
became  famous  through  his  poetic  rendering  of  Buddhism. 
The  Light  of  Asia,  a  long  poem  on  this  theme,  delighted 
the  people  of  England,  who  were  eager  to  learn  what  there 
was  to  be  told  about  a  religion  older  than  their  own.  Arnold 
tried  afterwards  in  other  poems  to  do  for  the  religion  of  Christ 
and  for  the  faith  of  Mahomet  what  he  had  done  for  Buddhism, 
but  in  both  these  efforts  he  failed  to  hit  the  public  taste. 

Far  more  highly  gifted  than  Edwin  Arnold  was  Francis 
w.  7 


98  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

Thompson  (1859 — 1907).  His  most  famous  poem  is  The 
Hound  of  Heaven,  and  the  opening  verses  are  worthy  of 
a  place  among  the  grandest  lyrics.  But  unfortunately 
Thompson  was  not  quite  sure  in  his  touch  even  in  The 
Hound  of  Heaven,  and  in  some  of  his  other  pieces  his 
lapses  into  bad  taste  are  scarcely  credible.  Had  he  lived 
longer  the  dross  might  have  been  burned  and  purged  away. 
As  it  is,  we  can  only  say  that  he  was  a  man  who  at  times 
wrote  nobly,  but  also  at  times  deplorably  ill.  His  usual 
style  is  grand  and  sonorous  almost  to  excess,  but  occasionally 
he  writes  with  a  charming  simplicity,  as  for  example  in  the 
exquisite  Wordsworthian  piece  Daisy. 

It   is   perhaps  a  chronological  error  to  place  George 
Meredith  (1828 — 1909)  at  the  end  of  the  chapter  on  poets 
and  poetesses.     But  his  span  of  productive  life  stretched 
for  nearly  fifty  years,  and  if  we  place  him  near  the  author 
of  In  Memoriam  or  The  Strayed  Reveller,  where  he  stands 
by  the  date  of  his  first  poem  Chillianwallah  (1849),  we  are 
at  fault  with  A  Reading  of  Life  (1901).     The  grandson  and 
son  of  tailors,  Meredith  was  born  at  Portsmouth  (the  Lym- 
port  of  Evan  Harrington)  and  educated  in  a  Moravian 
school  in  Germany.     At  the  age  of  twenty-one  he  began 
to  study  law,  cultivating  it  very  literally  on  a  little  oatmeal ; 
for  his  daily  fare  was  one  bowl  of  porridge.     In  the  same 
eventful  year  he  published  his  first  piece,  Chillianwallah, 
in  Chambers^  Journal,  and  also  married  the  flippant  Mary 
Ellen,  a  daughter  of  the  novelist  Thomas  Love  Peacock. 
It  was  impossible  to  keep  a  house  on  the  first  elements  of 
law,  so  he  left  the  office  and  settled  down  near  his  father- 
in-law  to  labour  at  journalism,  doing  this  work,  in  his  own 
words,  "with  his  toes,  to  leave  room  for  serener  occupations 
above."     His  wife  left  him,  and  he  and  his  little  son  lived 
together  in  great  frugality,  the  father,  as  he  said,  "  laying 
traps  for  money."     At  one  time  he  was  reader  to  the  pub- 
lishers Chapman  and  Hall,  and  he  lost  them  much  money 


THE   REMAINING   POETS  99 

by  refusing  to  accept  East  Lynne,  The  Heavenly  Twins 
and  other  novels  destined  to  catch  the  passing  fancy,  as 
well  as  Butler's  Erewhon.  He  was  also  on  the  staff  of 
The  Morning  Post  and  was  sent  out  by  his  helpful  friend 
Algernon  Borthwick  as  special  correspondent  with  the 
Italian  forces  towards  the  end  of  their  war  against  Austria. 
So  the  struggle  went  on  until  late  in  life,  when  he  was  left 
a  small  legacy  which  gave  him  pecuniary  independence 
and  set  him  free  to  write  what  he  liked. 

Meredith's  poetry  is  sufficient  in  bulk  as  well  as  in 
quality  to  give  reasonable  support  to  the  contention  of 
those  admirers  who  maintain  that  he  is  a  poet  in  the 
first  place  and  a  novelist  in  the  second.  It  is  within  the 
limits  of  possibility  that  his  poetry  may  become  better 
known  than  his  prose.  As  poet  he  is  unlike  the  Meredith 
familiar  to  the  novel  reader,  for  his  verse  is  essentially 
tragic,  while  in  prose  he  calls  himself  the  disciple  of  the 
comic  muse.  There  is  however  a  tragic  note  in  his  comedy. 

Modern  Love,  which  the  poet  considered  his  best  work, 
consists  of  fifty  pieces  of  sixteen  lines  so  much  like  sonnets 
that  Swinburne  has  given  them  the  name.  The  story, 
which  is  partly  founded  on  the  tragedy  of  Meredith's  first 
marriage,  is  only  lightly  sketched  in.  It  tells  of  a  tragic 
love.  There  is  no  villain,  only  a  tissue  of  errors  and 
misconceptions. 

"  In  tragic  life,  God  wot, 
No  villain  need  be!     Passion  spins  the  plot: 
We  are  betrayed  by  what  is  false  within." 

Had  Meredith  meant  to  tell  the  tale  fully  he  would  have 
made  it  into  a  novel;  as  it  is,  each  of  the  fifty  poems 
dimly  discloses  a  phase  of  the  story  hinted,  not  told,  or 
a  state  of  mind  of  the  principal  figure.  In  manner  of 
treatment  the  poem  recalls  Browning.  The  intellectual 
difficulties  are  like  those  Browning  deals  with,  and  they 
are  as  well  worth  solving. 

7—2 


ioo  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

From  the  very  titles  of  Meredith's  poems  we  see  that 
he  is  at  once  the  poet  of  nature  and  the  poet  of  man. 
Besides  Modern  Love  and  Ballads  and  Poems  of  Tragic 
Life,  we  owe  to  him  Poems  and  Lyrics  of  the  Joy  of  Earth  ; 
besides  A  Reading  of  Life  we  owe  A  Reading  of  Earth. 
But  it  must  not  be  supposed  from  these  titles  that  the  two 
are  regarded  by  Meredith  as  things  separate  and  distinct 
from  one  another :  they  are  close  akin.  It  is  the  union  of 
the  two  that  he  praises  in  Shakespeare,  and  on  that  he 
insists  in  one  of  the  finest  of  his  nature-poems,  The  Woods 
of  Westermain.  Earth,  he  tells  us  there,  is 

"  Spirit  in  her  clods, 
Footway  to  the  God  of  Gods." 

Meredith  can,  when  he  pleases,  be  magnificently  faithful 
in  the  description  of  nature.  The  Lark  Ascending  contains 
the  most  precise  and  accurate  description  of  the  bird  that 
is  to  be  found  in  the  whole  range  of  English  poetry;  while, 
as  poetry,  the  piece  is  worthy  of  comparison  with  Shelley's 
grand  chain  of  similes.  But  Meredith's  custom  is  to  pass 
from  nature  to  man,  or  from  man  to  nature.  The  main 
stress  however  is  laid  upon  humanity.  From  first  to  last 
Meredith  is  primarily  the  student  of  man,  and,  in  the  main, 
nature  is  a  background  to  him. 

From  the  tragic  atmosphere  of  Meredith's  poetry  it 
is  pleasant  to  pass  on  to  the  delightful  but  little-known 
verses  of  William  Brighty  Rands  (1823 — 1882).  We  may 
close  the  chapter  on  poets  and  poetesses  with  the  little 
child's  address  to  the  earth : — 

"Great,  wide,  beautiful,  wonderful  World, 
With  the  wonderful  water  round  you  curled, 
And  the  wonderful  grass  upon  your  breast — 
World,  you  are  beautifully  dressed. 
The  wonderful  air  is  over  me, 
And  the  wonderful  wind  is  shaking  the  tree. 
It  walks  on  the  water  and  whirls  the  mills, 
And  talks  to  itself  on  the  top  of  the  hills. 


POETS   AND   POETESSES  it* 

You  friendly  Earth!  how  far  do  you  go, 

With  the  wheat-fields  that  nod,  and  the  rivers  that  flow, 

With  cities,  and  gardens,  and  cliffs,  and  isles, 

And  people  upon  you  for  thousands  of  miles? 

Ah,  you  are  so  great  and  I  am  so  small, 

I  tremble  to  think  of  you,  World,  at  all ; 

And  yet  when  I  said  my  prayers  to-day, 

A  whisper  inside  me  seemed  to  say, 

'You  are  more  than  the  Earth,  though  you  are  such  a  dot: 

You  can  love  and  think,  and  the  Earth  cannot!"' 


§  i.    So  me  P  re-Victorian  Poets* 

John  Clare,  1793—1864. 

Poems,  descriptive  of  Rural  Life,  1820. 
Ebenezer  Elliott,  1781—1849. 

Corn-law  Rhymes,  1831. 
Thomas  Hood,  1799 — 1845. 

Lycus  the  Centaur,  1822. 

The  Plea  of  the  Midsummer  Fairies,  1827. 
Hartley  Coleridge,  1796—1849. 

Poems,  1833. 

RELIGIOUS  POETRY. 

James  Montgomery,  1771 — 1854. 
Reginald  Heber,  1783—1826. 
John  Keble,  1792—1866. 

The  Christian  Year,  1827. 

Lyra  Innocentium,  1846. 

DRAMATIC  POETS. 

James  Sheridan  Knowles,  1784 — 1862. 

Virginius,  1820. 

The  Beggar's  Daughter  of  Bethnal  Green,  1828. 

The  Hunchback,  1832. 
James  Robinson  Planche*,  1796—1880. 
Aubrey  de  Vere,  1788—1846. 

Julian  the  Apostate,  1822. 

The  Duke  of  Mercia,  1823. 

Mary  Tudor,  1847. 


102  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 


Rucsiell  Mitfcrd,  1787—1855. 

Julian,  1823. 

The  Foscari,  1826. 

Rienzi,  1828. 
Henry  Taylor,  1800—1886. 

Isaac  Comnenus,  1827. 

Philip  van  Artevelde,  1834. 

Edwin  the  Fair,  1842. 

The  Virgin   Widow,  1850. 

St  Clement's  Eve,  1862. 
Bulwer  Lytton  (Lord  Lytton),  1803  —  1873. 

The  Duchesse  de  la  Valliere,  1836. 

The  Lady  of  Lyons,  1838. 

Richelieu,  1839. 
Thomas  Lovell  Beddoes,  1803  —  1849. 

The  Bride's  Tragedy,  1822. 

Death's  Jest-Book,  1850. 

§  2.     Tennyson. 

Alfred  Tennyson,  1809  —  1892. 

Poems  by  two  Brothers  (with  Frederick  and  Charles  Tennyson), 

1827. 

Poems,  chiefly  Lyrical,  1830. 
Poems,  1832. 
Poems,  1842. 
The  Princess,  1847. 
In  Memoriam,  1850. 
Maud,  1855. 

Idylls  of  the  King,  1857—1885. 
Enoch  Arden,  1864. 
Queen  Mary,  1875. 
Harold,  1876. 
-#«:&/,  1884. 
Tiresias,  1885. 

Locksley  Hall  Sixty  Years  After,  1886. 
Demeter,  1889. 
7%*?  Zfea/ft  <?/  CEnone,  1892. 


POETS   AND   POETESSES  103 


§  3.     Browning. 

Robert  Browning,  1812—1^89. 
Pauline,  1833. 
Paracelsus,  1835. 
Strafford,  1837. 
Sordello,  1840. 
Pippa  Passes,  1841. 
Dramatic  Lyrics,  1842. 
A  Blot  in  the  *  Scutcheon,  1843. 
Colombe 's  Birthday,  1844. 
Dramatic  Romances  and  Lyrics,  1845. 
Luria,  1846. 

A  SouVs  Tragedy,  1846. 
Christmas  Eve  and  Easter  Day,  1850. 
Men  and  Women,  1.855. 
Dramatis  Personae,  1864. 
The  Ring  and  the  Book,  1868—1869. 
Balaustioris  Adventure,  1871. 
Fifine  at  the  Fair,  1872. 
The  Inn  Album,  1875. 
La  Saisiaz,  1878. 
Dramatic  Idyls,  1879 — 1880. 
Ferishtatts  Fancies,  1884. 

Parleyings  with  certain  People  of  Importance,  1887. 
Asolando,  1889. 

§  4.     Minor  Singers. 

THE  BALLADISTS. 

Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  1800 — 1859. 

Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,   1842. 
William  Edmonstoune  Aytoun,  1813— 1865.  , 

Lays  of  the  Scottish  ^Cavaliers,  1848.  V 

Firmilian,  1854. 

Bon  Gaultier  Ballads  (with  Sir  Theodore  Martin),  1855. 
Richard  Harris  Barham,  1788—1845. 

The  Ingoldsby  Legends,  1837—1847. 

WRITERS  OF  Vers  de  SociM. 
Winthrop  Mack  worth  Praed,  1802—1839. 


104  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

Richard  Monckton  Milnes  (Lord  Houghton),  1809 — 1885. 
Memorials  of  a  Tour  in  Greece,  1834. 
Poems,  Legendary  and  Historical,  1844. 
Palm  Leaves,  1844. 

THE  CATHOLIC  POETS. 

John  Henry  Newman,  1801 — 1890. 

Lyra  Apostolica  (with  others),  1836. 

The  Dream  of  Gerontius,  1865. 

Verses  on  Various  Occasions,  1868. 
Robert  Stephen  Hawker,  1803 — 1875. 

The  Quest  of  the  Sangraal,  1864. 

PHILOSOPHIC  POET. 

Philip  James  Bailey,  1816 — 1902. 
Festus,  1839. 

POLITICAL  POETS. 

Thomas  Cooper,  1805—1892. 

The  Purgatory  of  Suicides,  1845. 
Capel  Lofft,  1806—1873. 

Ernest,  or  Political  Regeneration,  1839. 

POET  OF  THE  CELTIC  REVIVAL. 
James  Clarence  Mangan,  1803—1849. 

THE  POETESSES. 

Fanny  Kemble,  1809—1893. 

Francis  the  First,  1832. 
Caroline  Norton,  1808—1877. 
Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  1806—1861. 

An  Essay  on  Mind,  {826. 

The  Seraphim,  1838. 

Poems,  1844. 

Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese, 

Casa  Guidi  Windows,  1851. 

Aurora  Leigh,  1857. 

Poems  before  Congress,  1860. 

Last  Poems,  1862. 


POETS   AND   POETESSES  105 


§  5-     The  Turn  of  the  Century. 

Edward  FitzGerald,  1809—1883. 

Euphranor,  1851. 

Calderon,  1853. 

Rubdiydt  of  Omar  Khayydm,  1859. 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  1819—1861. 

The  Bothie  of  Tober-na-Vuolich,  1848. 

Ambarvalia,  1849. 

Amours  de  Voyage,  1858. 

Dipsychus,  1862. 
Matthew  Arnold,  1822—1888. 

»The  Strayed  Reveller,  1849. 
Empedocles  on  Etna,  1852. 

Poems,  1853. 

Merope,  1858. 

Thyrsis,  1866. 

New  Poems,  1867. 
Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  1828—1882. 

The  Early  Italian  Poets,  1861. 

Poems,  1870. 

Ballads  and  Sonnets,  1881. 
Christina  Rossetti,  1830 — 1894. 

Goblin  Market,  1862. 

The  Princes  Progress,  1866. 
,,  /      A  Pageant,  1881. 

Time  Flies,  1885. 
Sydney  Dobell,  1824—1874. 

The  Roman,  1850. 

Balder,  1854. 

Sonnets  on  the  War  (with  Alexander  Smith),  1855. 

England  in  Time  of  War,  1856. 

The  Magyars  New-Year-Eve,  1858. 

The  Youth  of  England  to  Garibaldi's  Legion,  1860. 
^(Alexander  Smith,  1829—1867. 

Poems,  1853. 

City  Poems,  1857. 

Edwin  of  Deira,  1861. 

Dreamthorp,  1863. 

A  Summer  in  Skye,  1865. 

Alfred  Haqarfs  Household,  1866. 


io6  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

Coventry  Patmore,  1823 — 1896. 

Tamerton  Church  Tower,  1853. 

The  Angel  in  the  House,  1854—1856. 

Odes,  1868. 

The  Unknown  Eros,  1877. 

Amelia,  1878. 

§  6.     The  Later  Pre-Raphaelites. 

William  Morris,  1834—1896. 

The  Defence  of  Guenevere,  1858. 

The  Life  and  Death  of  Jason,  1867. 

The  Earthly  Paradise,  1868—1870. 

Sigurd  the  Volsung,  1876. 

The  House  of  the  Wolfings,  1889. 

News  from  Nowhere,  1891. 

The  Well  at  the  World's  End,  1896. 

The  Water  of  the  Wondrous  Isles,  1897. 

The  Story  of  the  Sundering  Flood,  1898. 
Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  1837 — 1909. 

The  Queen  Mother,  Rosamond,  1860. 

Atalanta  in  Calydon,  1865. 

Chastelard,  1865. 

Poems  and  Ballads,  1866,  1878,  1889. 

Songs  before  Sunrise,  1871. 

Bothwell,  1874. 

Erechtheus,  1876. 

Songs  of  the  Springtides,  1880. 

Studies  in  Song,  1880. 

Mary  Stuart,  1881. 

Tristram  of  Lyonesse,  1882. 

A  Century  of  Roundels,  1883. 

Marino  Faliero,  1885. 

Locrine,  1887. 

The  Tale  of  Balen,  1896. 

Rosamund,  Queen  of  the  Lombards,  1899. 
J.  B.  Leicester  Warren  (Lord  de  Tabley),  1835—1895. 

Philoctetes,  1866. 

Orestes,  1868. 

Rehearsals,  1870 

Searching  the  Net,  1873. 

Orpheus  in  Thrace,  1901. 


POETS   AND   POETESSES  107 


§  7.     The  Celtic  Poets. 


Lewis  Morris,  1833—1907. 

Songs  of  Two  Worlds,  1871—1875. 

The  Epic  of  Hades,  1876—1877. 

Songs  Unsung,  1883. 

Gycia,  1886. 

Songs  of  Britain,  1887. 
Arthur  O'Shaughnessy,  1844—1881. 
^  An  Epic  on  Women,  1870. 

Lays  of  France,  1872. 

Music  and  Moonlight,  1874. 

Songs  of  a  Worker,  1881. 
Aubrey  de  Vere,  1814—1902. 
%y  The  Sisters,  Inisfail,  and  other  Poems,  1861. 

The  Legends  of  St  Patrick,  1872. 

Alexander  the  Great,  1874. 

St  Thomas  of  Canterbury,  1876. 

The  Foray  of  Queen  Meave,  1882. 
Robert  Buchanan,  1841 — 1901, 

Idyls  and  Legends  of  Inverburn,  1865. 
V     London  Poems,  1866. 

North  Coast  and  other  Poems,  1868. 

The  Book  of  Orm,  1870 

Saint  Abe  and  his  Seven  Wives,  1872. 

White  Rose  and  Red,  1873. 

Balder  the  Beautiful,  1877. 

The  City  of  Dream,  1888. 

The  Wandering  Jew,  1893. 

§  8.     The  remaining  Poets. 

Jajnes  Thomson,  1834 — 1882. 
^  A  Lady  of  Sorrow,  1862—1864. 

Vane's  Story,  1864. 

Weddah  and  Om-el-Bonain,  1866—1867. 

The  City  of  Dreadful  Night,  1874. 
Phjlip  Bourke  Marston,  1850 — 1887. 

Song  Tide,  1871. 

Adelaide  Anne  Procter,  1825 — 1864. 
]    Legends  and  Lyrics,  1858. 

A  Chaplet  of  Verses,  1862. 


io8  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

Jean  Ingelow,  1820 — 1897. 

Poems,  1863,  1876,  1885. 

A  Story  of  Doom,  1867. 
Augusta  Webster,  1837 — 1894. 
\j      Dramatic  Studies,  1866. 

A  Woman  Sold,  1867. 

Portraits,  1870. 

The  Auspicious  Day,  1872. 

In  a  Day,  1882. 

The  Sentence,  1887. 
William  Ernest  Henley,  1849 — 19°3» 

A  Book  of  Verses,  1888. 

The  Song  of  the  Sword,  1892. 

For  England's  Sake,  1900. 

Hawthorn  and  Lavender,  1901. 
Robert,  Earl  of  Lytton  (Owen  Meredith),  1831—1891. 

Clytemnestra,  1855. 

Lucile,  1860. 
'  Fables  in  Song,  1874. 

Glenaveril,  1885. 

After  Paradise,  or  Legends  of  Exile,  1887. 
Edwin  Arnold,  1832—1904. 
v       The  Light  of  Asia,  1879. 

Pearls  of  the  Faith,  1883. 

The  Light  of  the  World,  1891. 
Francis  Thompson,  1859 — 1907. 

Poems,  1893. 

Sister  Songs,  1895.    • 

New  Poems,  1897. 
\  George  Meredith,  1828-^1909. 

Poems,  1851. 

Modern  Love,  1862. 

Poems  and  Lyrics  of  the  Joy  of  Ebrth,  1883. 

Ballads  and  Poems  of  Tragic  Life,  1887. 

A  Reading  of  Earth,  1888. 

Odes  in  contribution  to  the  Song  of  French  History,  1898. 

A  Reading  of  Life,  1901. 
William  Brighty  Rands  (1823—1882). 

Lilliput  Levee,  1864. 


CHAPTER    III 

NOVELS    AND    NOVELISTS 

§  i.     The  Successors  of  Scott 

BEFORE  dealing  with  the  romance  writers  who  took  Sir 
Walter  Scott  as  their  model,  it  will  be  well  to  discuss  one 
novelist  who  lived  with  Scott  and  for  a  generation  after 
him,  yet  bears  no  trace  of  Scott's  influence.  This  excep- 
tion was  Thomas  Love  Peacock  (1785 — 1866).  He  was 
in  many  respects  everything  the  author  of  Waverley  was 
not.  He  was  the  satirist  of  his  own  generation  and 
cared  little  for  the  past.  Except  for  a  very  slight  his- 
torical element  in  Maid  Marian  and  in  The  Misfortunes 
of  Elphin,  he  showed  no  interest  in  any  age  but  his  own. 
He  neither  took  pleasure  in  the  delineation  of  the  normal 
human  character,  nor  could  find  any  charm  in  that  com- 
monplace life  which  supplied  Scott  with  his  richest 
materials. 

There  is  little  to  tell  about  Peacock's  personal  history. 
His  knowledge  was  acquired  without  the  help  of  school 
or  university,  but  it  was  sufficient,  at  least  in  classics,  to 
satisfy  the  tolerably  exacting  judgment  of  Macaulay,  who 
records  that  he  and  Peacock  tested  each  other's  knowledge 
in  Greek  and  found  they  were  both  "strong  enough  in  these 
matters  for  gentlemen." 

In  poetry,  which  was  the  first  form  of  literature  that  he 
tried,  he  was  at  his  best  in  the  lyric  or  ballad.  Scattered 
through  his  stories  we  find  exquisite  snatches  of  songs 


i  io  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

grave  and  gay.  His  comic  verse  is  excellent.  But  the 
comic  and  satirical  genius  finds  its  best  expression  in 
prose,  and  the  change  from  verse  to  the  prose  tale  was 
a  happy  one  for  Peacock.  His  stories  and  plots  however 
count  for  little ;  they  are  mere  threads  on  which  to  hang 
the  satire.  In  Melincourt  we  find  him  laughing  at  the 
abolition  of  slavery  and  at  the  Lake  Poets.  In  Nightmare 
Abbey  he  holds  up  to  ridicule  Byron  as  Mr  Cypress, 
Coleridge  as  Mr  Flosky  and  Southey  as  Mr  Sackbut.  Even 
Shelley,  as  Mr  Scythrop,  does  not  escape.  Shelley  was 
the  only  writer  of  his  time  whom  Peacock  really  liked  and 
admired  ;  and  though  his  affection  did  not  prevent  him 
from  caricaturing  Shelley,  it  did  restrain  him  from  going 
far  enough  to  break  the  friendship.  Shelley  enjoyed  the 
laugh  as  much  as  the  readers,  and  continued  to  be  the 
author's  friend  until  his  death.  The  Misfortunes  of  Elphin, 
Crotchet  Castle  and  Gryll  Grange  show  the  influence  of 
prosperity.  Their  author  looks  with  more  lenient  eyes  on 
the  follies  of  the  world,  and  laughs  more  joyously  at  the 
absurdities  of  the  Steam  Intellect  Society  and  the  March 
of  Mind.  But  his  works  will  never  be  popular  reading. 
They  have  beauty  of  style  and  sparkling  wit,  they  show 
knowledge  and  technical  skill ;  but  his  characters  lack 
reality,  and,  though  we  laugh,  we  do  not  feel  that  the 
creatures  we  are  laughing  at  are  real  men  and  women. 

Peacock  is,  as  it  were,  on  a  side  track  ;  the  direct  line 
of  development  in  fiction  lay  through  Scott,  and  the  vein 
which  was  most  diligently  worked  in  the  years  immediately 
after  him  was  that  of  the  historical  romance.  Scott  was 
not  indeed  the  first  to  write  historical  novels,  but  never- 
theless he  may  be  considered  the  father  of  this  form  of 
fiction  in  England,  France  and  Germany.  The  great 
popularity  of  the  Waverley  novels  stimulated  story-tellers  to 
try  what  treasures  their  wits  could  discover  in  the  records 
of  the  past.  But  they  read  in  order  that  they  might  write, 


THE   SUCCESSORS   OF  SCOTT  in 

while  Scott  wrote  from  the  fulness  of  knowledge  already 
acquired.  The  consequence  is  that  their  books  smell  of 
musty  records  and  of  midnight  oil. 

William  Harrison  Ainsworth  (1805 — 1882)  was  one  of 
the  story-tellers  who  worked  heavily  and  laboriously  on 
the  lines  of  Scott.  His  Tower  of  London^  Old  St  Paul's 
and  Windsor  Castle  are  monuments  of  industry ;  but 
they  are  tiresome  reading,  and  even  at  times  repulsive, 
because  of  the  gruesome  details  of  cruel  acts  and  horrible 
deaths  which  have  been  collected.  Yet  the  school- 
masters of  his  time  presented  his  books  as  prizes  to  the 
schoolboys. 

Scott  set  the  fashion  in  other  things  as  well  as  in 
historical  fiction.  No  writer  is  more  deeply  imbued  with 
the  spirit  of  nationality.  His  stories  of  Scottish  life  con- 
ferred on  Scotland,  as  it  has  been  phrased,  a  'citizenship 
of  letters.  Here  too  he  had  followers.  Scott's  own  son-in- 
law,  Lockhart,  worked  in  this  field,  though  there  is  little 
resemblance  between  his  Adam  Blair  and  anything  of 
Scott's.  Neither  have  the  sentimental  tales  of  John  Wilson, 
better  known  by  his  pseudonym  Christopher  North,  much 
of  Scott's  spirit.  They  were  nevertheless  suggested  by 
the  Waverley  series.  So  too  were  the  stories  of  John  Gait 
(1779 — 1839),  which  have  far  more  of  the  genius  of  the 
master.  Gait,  in  fact,  attempted  to  do  for  the  estate  of 
Kittlestonheugh  what  Scott  did  for  Scotland.  He  wrote 
the  Annals  of  the  Parish  with  admirable  insight  and 
complete  fidelity ;  and  though  that  is  the  title  of  only 
one  of  his  stories,  it  indicates  the  spirit  and  method  of 
all.  What  he  could  not  do  was  to  depict  that  larger 
world  into  which  Scott  takes  us,  or  to  rise,  in  his  narrower 
world,  to  the  heights  of  tragedy  which  Scott  reaches  in 
the  story  of  the  Mucklebackits. 

In  Ireland  also  there  was  a  group  of  young  writers 
who  set  themselves  the  task  of  doing  for  their  country 


ii2  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

what  the  author  of  Waverley  had  done  for  Scotland. 
Unfortunately  they  lacked  not  only  the  genius  but  the 
education  which  was  needful  for  the  historical  part  at 
least  of  the  work.  This  deficiency  is  sadly  apparent  in 
William  Carleton  (1794 — 1869),  the  most  highly  gifted  of 
these  Irishmen.  It  did  not  prevent  him  from  writing 
excellent  stories  of  the  life  with  which  he  was  familiar — 
stories  incomparably  more  faithful  and  better  grounded 
than  the  caricatures  of  the  far  more  famous  Lever.  Un- 
fortunately Carleton  is  better  known  east  of  St  George's 
Channel  by  the  comparatively  weak  and  poor  tale  of  Willy 
Reilly.  The  work  by  which  he  best  deserves  to  be  known 
is  his  extraordinarily  vivid  and  interesting  Autobiography. 
Some  of  Carleton's  statements  in  that  book  should  perhaps 
be  taken  with  caution.  Many  would  be  disposed  to  doubt 
whether  he  is  accurate  when  he  asserts  that  in  his  first 
day  at  school  he  learnt  his  alphabet,  and  had  advanced  in 
spelling  as  far  as  b,  a,  g,  bag.  Th^re  is  unfortunately  less 
reason  to  doubt  his  more  important  statement  that  he 
remembered  the  time  when  there  was  "no  law  against  an 
Orangeman,  and  no  law  for  a  Papist."  But  whatever 
deductions  may  be  made,  it  is  safe  to  assert  that  this 
Autobiography  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  documents  in 
existence  for  the  study  of  Irish  life  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  For  this  and  for  his  Traits  and  Stories  of  the 
Irish  Peasantry  Carleton  deserves  exceedingly  well  of  his 
country.  Several  more  of  Carleton's  stories  are  well  worth 
reading,  but  the  spirit  of  all  his  work  is  present  in  the 
Traits  and  Stories. 

Among  his  Irish  contemporaries  Carleton  rightly  thought 
that  those  who  were  most  worthy  to  stand  beside  himself 
were  John  Banim  and  Gerald  Griffin.  Both  were  respectable 
writers,  but  neither  of  them  left  work  which  has  any  title  to  be 
called  great.  They  died  comparatively  young,  and  probably 
the  writings  they  left  do  not  adequately  express  their  gifts. 


THE   SUCCESSORS   OF  SCOTT  113 

An  Irishman  of  a  different  class  was  William  Maginn 
(1793 — 1842).  His  actual  writings  are  less  valuable  than 
those  of  the  men  above  named,  but  he  contrived  to  stamp 
his  mark  more  deeply  upon  the  literature  of  his  time. 
Under  the  pseudonym  of  O'Doherty  he  contributed  to 
Blackwoods  Magazine  and  became  one  of  the  most  pro- 
minent of  the  brilliant  band  who  were  associated  with 
it.  There  seem  to  have  been  few  periodicals  of  the  time 
with  which  he  had  not  something  to  do.  But  his  great 
achievement  was  the  establishment,  with  the  help  of  his 
friend  Hugh  Fraser,  of  FraseSs  Magazine ',  to  which  he 
attracted  a  body  of  writers  more  brilliant  than  even  that 
of  Blackwood.  By  this  ceaseless  journalism  Maginn  wrote 
himself  out,  without  ever  having  done  the  work  he  was 
born  to  do.  His  great  talent  and  his  unquestionable 
scholarship  are  represented  only  by  a  miscellaneous  col- 
lection from  which  the  spirit  has  almost  wholly  evaporated. 
He  will  live  longer  as  the  Captain  Shandon  of  Thackeray 
than  for  anything  he  himself  has  left.  For  a  time  however, 
partly  by  his  own  writings  and  partly  by  the  writings  of 
the  friends  whom  he  gathered  round  him,  Maginn  gave  a 
markedly  Irish  flavour  to  Fraser' s  Magazine.  Among 
those  friends  were  Crofton  Croker,  who  collected  and  re- 
duced to  form  the  interesting  Fairy  Legends  and  Traditions 
of  the  South  of  Ireland^  and  Francis  Mahony,  who  is  better 
known  by  his  pen-name  of  Father  Prout,  author  of  the 
famous  Reliques.  Few  probably  would  have  the  patience 
now  to  read  the  Reliques  through ;  their  wit  is  stale ;  and 
yet  they  saved  Fraser^s  Magazine  from  the  ruin  with  which 
the  immortal  Sartor  Resartus  of  Carlyle  had  threatened  it. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  English  impressions  of  Ireland 
have  been  drawn  mainly,  not  from  Carleton,  but  from  two 
caricaturists,  Samuel  Lover  (1797 — 1 868)  and  Charles  Lever 
(1806 — 1872).  There  are  several  points  of  resemblance 
between  them.  Both,  in  particular,  were  excellent  writers 

w.  8 


n4  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

« 

of  humorous  songs  :  the  former's  Widow  Machree  and  the 
latter's  Widow  Malone  are  admirable  as  pieces  of  fun  in 
verse.  But  except  in  this  point  Lever  was  decidedly  the 
greater  man  of  the  two.  It  is  strange  that  this  typical 
Irishman,  as  he  is  supposed  to  be,  was  Irish  by  little  more 
than  birth.  His  father  migrated  from  Manchester,  and 
his  mother  too  traced  her  origin  to  an  English  family. 
By  far  the  best  known  of  Lever's  tales  are  his  earliest, 
Harry  Lorrequer  and  Charles  O'Malley,  and  the  latter  is 
probably  that  which  best  deserves  to  be  known.  It  is  true 
that  in  later  days  Lever's  methods  became  somewhat  less 
crude  than  they  are  in  that  lively  story,  and  he  himself 
preferred  some  of  the  works  of  his  maturer  years  ;  but 
probably  more  was  lost  in  verve  than  was  gained  in  finish. 
Lever  is  a  writer  who  must  not  be  taken  too  seriously. 
His  most  authentically  Irish  characteristic  is  his  cheerful 
carelessness.  To  use  his  own  words,  he  wrote  as  he  lived, 
from  hand  to  mouth.  There  was  no  time  to  give  care  and 
labour  to  the  work,  even  if  he  had  possessed  the  critical 
power  necessary  to  polish  it.  The  printer's  devil  was  always 
waiting  on  the  doorstep,  or  the  dun  for  his  money  in  the 
passage. 

Some  of  Lever's  stories  are  superficially  historical,  but 
the  history  is  a  very  thin  veneer.  The  spirit  in  which  he 
treated  it  is  shown  in  the  bargain  he  made  with  a  certain 
officer  of  the  British  army,  who  by  a  legal  deed  sold  to 
Lever  for  four  napoleons  the  right  to  make  what  use  the 
novelist  pleased  of  his  adventures.  This  personage  figures 
in  Lever's  pages  as  Major  Monsoon.  But  slight  as  the 
historical  element  is,  its  presence  gives  Lever  a  place 
among  the  novelists  who  were  inspired  by  the  gigantic 
struggle  with  Napoleon.  Among  others  stirred  by  the  in- 
cidents of  these  wars  may  be  mentioned  William  Hamilton 
Maxwell  and  George  Robert  Gleig,  whose  autobiographic 
tale,  The  Subaltern,  won  the  admiration  of  Wellington,  and 


THE   SUCCESSORS   OF  SCOTT  115 

ultimately  led  to  Gleig's  becoming  the  biographer  of  the 
great  duke.  James  Grant  wrote  a  good  deal  later.  His 
Romance  of  War  is  considered  by  many  to  be  the  best  of 
all  the  stories  suggested  by  the  Peninsular  War. 

The  triumphs  of  Nelson  as  well  as  the  glories  of 
Wellington  had  their  story-tellers,  and  Frederick  Marryat 
(1792 — 1848)  has  done  for  the  sailor  what  Lever  tried  to  do 
for  the  soldier.  By  profession  a  seaman,  he  enjoyed  the 
interesting  experience  of  working  for  three  years  under  the 
great  commander  Cochrane,  afterwards  Lord  Dundonald, 
whom  we  meet  as  Captain  Savage  in  the  novel  Peter  Simple. 
On  the  famous  ship  Impe'rieuse  Marryat  saw  fifty  engage- 
ments and  was  wounded  three  times.  When  he  took  to 
writing  he  had  gathered  together  an  immense  collection  of 
adventures  and  had  met  many  unusual  characters.  As  they 
all  belonged  to  an  epoch  of  seafaring  life  which  has  passed 
away  with  the  invention  of  steamships  and  the  develop- 
ment of  machinery,  his  novels  will  always  be  of  interest 
as  the  best  pictures  of  the  great  age  of  English  sea  power. 
The  most  readable  of  them,  in  addition  to  that  already 
named,  are  Jacob  Faithful  and  Midshipman  Easy.  They 
are  written  in  a  style  careless  indeed  and  boisterous,  but 
for  that  very  reason  well  fitted  to  the  subject,  and  as 
pictures  of  a  bygone  form  of  life  they  deserve  a  permanent 
place  in  literature. 

Another  important  writer  of  fiction,  who  won  a  higher 
place  in  his  lifetime  than  posterity  has  seen  fit  to  accord 
him,  was  Lord  Lytton,  who  was  first  known  as  Edward 
Bulwer  (1803 — 1873).  He  started  writing  in  his  teens,  and 
at  Cambridge  carried  off  the  Chancellor's  medal.  After 
achieving  this  distinction  he  cut  himself  off  from  his  friends 
and  joined  a  roving  band  of  gypsies,  one  of  whose  daughters 
he  wedded  after  the  manner  of  these  wandering  tribes.  In 
1827  he  made  a  regular  marriage  with  a  lady  of  his  own 
race,  but  the  union  brought  him  no  happiness.  Mrs  Bulwer, 

8—2 


u6  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

brilliant,  beautiful  and  miserable,  took  the  public  into  her 
confidence  in  order  to  make  money,  and  also  to  revenge 
herself  for  the  wrongs,  real  and  imaginary,  inflicted  upon 
her  by  her  husband.  As  Bulwer's  mother  was  alienated 
from  her  son  by  the  marriage,  he  became  dependent  on  the 
earnings  his  pen  could  bring  him.  He  spent  money  so 
lavishly  that  he  was  forced  to  work  beyond  his  strength  ; 
and  this  hurried  work  was  unworthy  of  his  powers.  Yet 
in  spite  of  this  pressure,  and  though  he  was  handicapped 
by  deafness  and  an  impediment  in  his  speech,  Lytton 
played  a  part  in  politics  also  and  won  his  way  to  cabinet 
rank.  It  is  astonishing  to  read  that  men  listening  to  his 
oratory  felt  he  was  almost  the  greatest  of  speakers.  So 
too  in  the  literary  world  his  books  were  spoken  of  as 
works  of  the  highest  genius.  Charles  Reade,  adapting 
Byron's  saying  about  Sheridan,  declared  that  Lytton  had 
"  written  the  best  play,  the  best  comedy  and  the  best  novel 
of  the  age."  Thackeray  however  was  not  dazzled  by  the 
glamour,  and  James  Thomson,  the  author  of  The  City  of 
Dreadful  Night,  spoke  scornfully  of  Lytton's  "pinch- 
beck poetry,  pinchbeck  philosophy,  pinchbeck  learning, 
pinchbeck  sentiment."  Perhaps  his  failure  to  do  really 
great  work  was  the  result  of  his  versatility.  He  tried 
oratory,  poetry,  dramas,  novels  of  manners,  historical  ro- 
mances, mystical  tales,  ghost  stories,  and  all  the  manifold 
and  weird  forms  of  literature  which  come  from  the  brain 
of  a  man  who  believes  in  the  supernatural.  Even  until 
his  death  his  name  stirred  the  imagination  and  excited 
interest.  It  seemed  right  to  bury  him  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  but  few  now  think  that  his  proper  resting  place 
is  there. 

Lytton's  early  novels,  Falkland,  Paul  Clij§ rot Y/and  Eugene 
Aram  are  not  healthy  reading ;  they  are  morbid  studies  of 
crime.  The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii,  Rienzi  and  the  romances 
founded  on  English  history  are  imitations  of  Scott.  Then 


THE   SUCCESSORS   OF   SCOTT  117 

there  is  a  group  of  stories,  The  Caxtons,  My  Novel  and 
What  will  he  do  with  It?  which  are  his  contribution  to 
the  fashion  of  writing  novels  of  domestic  life.  But  Lytton 
could  not  wholly  rid  himself  of  affectation,  a  vice  peculiarly 
objectionable  in  work  of  this  sort.  Perhaps  only  his  tales 
of  the  supernatural  were  absolutely  sincere.  There  was  no 
other  subject  which  interested  him  more  deeply,  or  came 
nearer  to  being  a  religion  to  him.  Of  this  class  the  best 
known  is  Zanoni,  the  history  of  a  man  who  at  the  call  of 
love  voluntarily  gives  up  immortality,  the  secret  of  which 
he  has  won. 

In  this  phase  of  his  mind  Lytton  stands  far  apart  from 
his  fellow  novelist  Benjamin  Disraeli  (1804 — 1881),  after- 
wards Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  who  took  no  pleasure  in  any 
magic  that  was  not  of  his  own  world.  Yet  Disraeli  was 
not  unlike  Lytton  in  the  brilliant  versatility  of  his  genius. 
Their  lives  too  ran  on  somewhat  parallel  lines.  Both  were 
politicians,  both  changed  sides,  and  both  left  a  curious 
mixture  of  admiration  and  distrust  in  the  minds  of  their 
contemporaries. 

Disraeli  was  one  of  the  most  picturesque  figures  of  the 
early  thirties.  A  contemporary  says,  "  His  evening  coat 
was  of  black  velvet  lined  with  satin,  purple  trousers  with  a 
gold  band  running  down  the  outside  seam,  a  scarlet  waist- 
coat, long  lace  ruffles  falling  down  to  the  tips  of  his  fingers, 
white  gloves  with  several  brilliant  rings  outside  them,  and 
long  black  ringlets  rippling  down  upon  his  shoulders." 
The  figure  is  singularly  un-English ;  and  this  was  in  part 
the  reason  of  the  deep  dislike  with  which  Disraeli  was 
long  regarded.  Punch  satirised  him  with  a  bitterness  un- 
usual in  those  genial  pages.  Lockhart  called  him  a  "Jew 
scamp,"  and  other  contemptuous  terms,  such  as  "  swab " 
and  "traitor,"  were  flung  at  him.  In  truth  he  was  a  child 
of  the  East,  full  of  visions  of  the  glory  of  his  race  and  of 
his  own  destiny,  all  of  which  he  took  seriously.  Many  of  his 


u8  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

visions  he  went  far  towards  realising.  He  forced  the 
English  country  gentry  to  accept  as  their  leader  an  alien 
whom  they  distrusted,  and  he  also,  alien  as  he  was,  crowned 
Victoria  Empress  of  India  and  secured  for  England  a 
controlling  interest  in  the  Suez  Canal. 

Politics,  not  literature,  was  Disraeli's  great  interest,  and 
in  this  respect  he  is  the  opposite  of  Lytton.  In  Vivian 
Grey,  a  novel  of  society  like  Bulwer's  Pelham,  we  have  a 
brilliant  picture  of  a  young  adventurer  forcefully  making 
his  way  by  his  own  wits.  In  that  light  the  world  regarded 
Disraeli  himself.  But  Vivian  Grey  fails,  and  Disraeli  did 
not  mean  to  fail.  There  is  however  more  romance  than 
business  in  the  story.  It  is  not  until  we  read  the  three 
famous  books  which  came  out  in  the  forties,  Coningsby^ 
Sybil  and  Tancred,  that  we  understand  the  strength  as  well 
as  the  weakness  of  their  author.  In  these  books  he  enlarges 
upon  the  schemes  of  reform  which  had  begun  to  occupy 
him  when  he  entered  parliament  in  1837  and  gradually 
became  more  prominent  in  his  mind  as  he  advanced  in 
position  and  power,  until  on  his  election  in  1848  to  be 
leader  of  the  opposition  he  found  himself  strong  enough 
to  try  to  make  them  realities.  The  doctrine  he  sought  to 
inculcate  was  that  the  comfort  and  wellbeing  of  the  people 
ought  to  be  the  first  aim  of  governments.  Schemes  for 
social  legislation  were  rare  in  his  day,  and  Disraeli  by 
his  insistence  upon  their  importance  showed  himself  a 
far-seeing  statesman  and  in  some  cases  a  prophet. 

For  many  years  the  pressure  of  politics  prevented 
Disraeli  from  writing.  His  last  books  came  out  towards 
the  end  of  his  life.  His  interests  had  now  become  entirely 
political,  his  life  lay  behind  him,  he  had  lost  the  eager 
hopes  and  expectations  which  gave  his  earlier  works  their 
prophetic  fervour  and  the  characters  their  vivid  though 
somewhat  glaring  colour.  Lothair  and  Endymion  are  dull 
reading. 


DICKENS  119 

§  2.     Dickens 

Dickens  and  Thackeray  are  the  real  successors  of  Scott, 
for,  though  they  did  not  imitate  him,  it  was  they  who 
carried  on  and  modified  the  tradition  of  the  English  novel. 
Their  work  is  more  realistic  than  Scott's.  Though  both  of 
them  wrote  historical  novels,  this  particular  type  of  romance 
had  at  first  little  attraction  for  them,  and  the  middle  ages, 
the  favourite  field  of  historical  story-tellers,  had  none  at  all. 
They  preferred  to  turn  their  searchlights  upon  their  own 
time  or  on  the  very  recent  past.  Dickens  found  in  the 
streets  of  London  practically  all  the  materials  he  required 
for  his  stories  of  his  own  day ;  Thackeray  drew  from  a  wider 
area  in  space  and  in  time,  but  his  main  study  was  the  society 
of  his  own  generation  in  the  upper  and  middle  classes. 

Charles  Dickens  (1812 — 1870)  was  the  son  of  a  clerk 
in  the  Navy  pay-office,  and  much  of  the  history  of  his 
miserable  childhood  has  been  given  to  us  in  his  account  of 
David  Copperfield.  Dickens  himself  worked  in  the  blacking 
warehouse.  In  the  easy-going,  careless  Mr  Micawber  we 
have  a  portrait  of  John  Dickens  the  father;  and  the 
mysterious  "deeds"  which,  in  this  novel,  lead  up  to  im- 
prisonment in  the  Marshalsea,  were  really  executed  by  him. 
To  the  end  of  his  life  Dickens  remembered  with  bitterness 
the  miseries  and  degradations  of  those  years.  The  education 
he  received  at  school  was  trifling,  and  at  fifteen  he  entered 
a  lawyer's  office,  where  he  remained  a  year  and  a  half. 
He  gave  up  his  legal  work  in  order  to  be  a  reporter  on  the 
staff  of  The  True  Sun,  in  which  capacity  he  became,  in  his 
own  words, "  the  best  and  most  rapid  reporter  ever  known." 
But  he  had  higher  ambitions.  He  judged  himself,  and 
truly,  to  be  fit  for  the  stage,  and  began  to  train  himself  to 
be  an  actor.  Luckily  for  posterity,  he  was  diverted  from 
his  purpose.  It  was  about  this  time  that  he  started  writing 


120  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

down  his  own  thoughts  as  well  as  reporting  those  of  others. 
His  first  production,  known  to  us  now  as  Mr  Minns  and 
his  Cousin,  one  of  the  Sketches  by  Boz,  was  printed  in  The 
Monthly  Magazine  in  1833.  The  young  novelist  has 
described  his  nervous  hopes  and  fears  when  he  dropped  his 
little  story  into  the  letter  box  of  the  magazine.  Three  years 
later  the  Sketches  by  Boz,  sketches  so  hopefully  begun,  had 
become  known,  and  Dickens  was  invited  to  write  The  Pick- 
wick Papers,  which  made  him  at  once  the  most  popular 
novelist  of  his  age,  and  still  constitutes  his  best  title  to 
fame.  The  success  of  this  work  was  swift  and  brilliant. 
Only  four  hundred  copies  of  the  first  number  were  ordered. 
Forty  thousand  were  ordered  of  the  fifteenth. 

Henceforth  Dickens  was  a  writer  by  profession,  and 
there  is  little  more  to  record  of  personal  history  beyond  his 
marriage,  which  became  unhappy,  the  attainment  of  his 
highest  boyish  ambition  in  the  purchase  of  the  house 
known  as  Gad's  Hill  Place,  the  dates  of  his  books,  two 
visits  to  America,  and  various  peregrinations  through 
England  as  an  entertainer  reading  aloud  from  his  books. 
It  was  in  the  forties  that  Dickens  conceived  the  plan  of 
giving  these  readings ;  but  his  best  friends  dissuaded  him 
from  making  this  public  display  of  himself.  However,  in 
1858  he  insisted  on  starting,  and  Carlyle,  who  witnessed 
one  of  his  exhibitions,  saw  in  Dickens  reading  his  own 
novel  "a  whole  tragic,  comic,  heroic,  theatre  visible,  per- 
forming under  one  hat"\  and  performing  extraordinarily 
well,  for  he  added  that  Dickens  "acts  better  than  any 
Macready  in  the  world."  Forster,  the  friend  and  adviser 
and  ultimately  the  biographer  of  Dickens,  felt  that  these 
displays  were  in  bad  taste.  But  Dickens  persisted,  partly 
from  love  of  gain,  for  he  netted  about  ,£45,000,  and  partly 
because  he  himself  got  pleasure  from  the  readings. 

As  a  rule  the  plots  of  Dickens's  novels  are  not  successful, 
though  the  unfinished  Mystery  of  Edwin  Drood  shows  that, 


DICKENS  121 

when  he  chose  to  devote  himself  to  the  task  of  making 
one,  he  could  surpass  his  contemporaries  in  the  art  of  con- 
struction, as  well  as  in  the  delineation  of  character.  But 
he  felt  himself  restrained  and  handicapped  by  the  un- 
congenial necessity ;  and  for  this  reason  he  did  his  best 
work  in  such  books  as  The  Pickwick  Papers,  where  he  was 
free  to  go  whither  his  fancy  led. 

By  his  education  in  the  university  of  the  streets  Dickens 
had  unconsciously  given  himself  the  best  preparation  for 
such  novels  as  Oliver  Twist,  David  Copperfield  and  Nicholas 
Nickleby.  But  at  the  same  time  he  had  narrowed  his 
world  to  the  inhabitants  of  those  streets.  Some  of  his 
critics  say  that  he  has  never  been  able  to  describe  a  gentle- 
man. Though  the  figure  of  Sydney  Carton  is  enough  to 
show  that  this  judgment  is  too  sweeping,  it  is  certainly  true 
to  say  that  Dickens  was  never  so  much  at  home  as  when 
he  was  dealing  with  the  Londoner  of  the  lower  ranks.  His 
books  teem  with  such  people,  sufficient  in  number,  it  has 
been  said,  to  send  a  member  to  parliament.  They  are  a 
curious  collection,  following  strange  and  unfamiliar  trades — 
there  is  the  man  who  lives  by  recovering  bodies  from  the 
Thames,  the  articulator  of  skeletons,  the  dustman,  the  mid- 
wife, the  chimney-sweeper,  the  housebreaker.  Dickens  knew 
them  all,  better  than  most  of  us  know  our  next-door  neigh- 
bour. In  the  country  he  was  out  of  his  element.  If  by 
any  chance  his  characters  move  thither  they  carry  the  town 
with  them.  Dickens  has  had  many  imitators.  The  shelves 
of  our  bookshops  are  full  of  stories  of  mean  streets.  But 
though  these  may  have  more  of  the  truth  of  a  photograph 
than  the  stories  of  Dickens,  yet  we  feel  that  there  is  a 
deeper  truth  which  he  has  and  they  have  not.  To  him  the 
dwellers  in  the  city  slums  have  joys  as  well  as  sorrows  and 
privations,  and  they  are  as  profoundly  human  as  their 
superiors  in  social  position.  What  strikes  us  above  all  in 
his  delineations  of  slum-land  is  their  rich  fun  and  humour. 


122  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

It  was  by  these  qualities  mainly  that  he  won  success  in 
Pickwick.  But  when  he  wrote  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop  and 
Dombey  and  Son  it  was  what  they  called  pathos  and  we 
are  tempted  to  call  sentimentality  that  the  critics  and 
general  readers  applauded  most.  Macaulay  wept  over 
Florence  Dombey,  Jeffrey  spoke  of  "the  divine  Nelly,"  and 
Thackeray  felt  he  had  not  "  an  atom  of  a  chance  "  against 
such  "stupendous  writing"  as  the  death  of  little  Paul. 
George  Eliot  and  Ruskin  however  thought  otherwise.  The 
wind  has  now  veered  to  their  quarter,  and  most  people 
would  agree  with  Mr  W.  D.  Howells  when  he  pronounces 
the  pathetic  scenes  in  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop  "prepos- 
terously overdone."  We  have  become  restless  under  the 
preachings  of  Pecksniff  and  impatient  of  the  monotonous 
humility  of  Uriah  Heep ;  but  we  still  laugh  with  Sam 
Weller  and  laugh  at  Mrs  Gamp,  and  we  still  enjoy  the 
sportsmanship  of  Mr  Winkle.  It  may  therefore  be  safely 
said  that  it  is  by  reason  of  his  humorous  characters  that 
Dickens  will  keep  his  place  in  English  hearts. 

§  3.     Thackeray 

William  Makepeace  Thackeray  (1811 — 1863)  was  born 
in  Calcutta  and  came  home  to  England  for  his  education. 
Napoleon  was  then  a  prisoner  on  the  island  of  St  Helena, 
and  the  boy  had  a  glimpse  of  the  deposed  Emperor.  He 
did  not  take  kindly  to  his  English  school,  the  Charterhouse; 
in  his  earlier  writings  it  figures  as  the  Swishtail  Academy; 
but  time  mellowed  his  memory,  and  in  The  Newcomes 
we  read  of  it  under  the  name  of  the  Grey  Friars.  From 
the  Charterhouse  Thackeray  went  to  Cambridge,  where  he 
was  slightly  Tennyson's  junior.  After  leaving  college  he 
visited  Germany,  where  he  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Goethe.  In  1831  he  was  back  in  England  and  preparing 
for  the  bar ;  but  he  seems  to  have  shown  no  more  zeal  in 


THACKERAY  123 

getting  ready  for  that  profession  than  his  hero  Pendennis 
did.  His  successor  in  chambers  found  his  desk  crammed 
with  sketches  and  caricatures.  Thackeray  had  unfortu- 
nately inherited  a  small  fortune  from  his  father,  and  so  he 
did  not  feel  the  healthy  compulsion  of  necessity  to  work. 
He  spent  much  time  lying  awake  at  nights  considering 
how  he  would  use  his  money.  Whatever  he  may  have 
resolved  to  do  with  it,  he  lost  all  in  newspaper  speculation 
a  few  years  after  he  had  obtained  control  of  it.  He  married 
in  1836,  and  was  very  happy,  living  mainly  in  Paris,  until 
the  mental  breakdown  of  his  wife  made  his  home  desolate 
and  left  him  with  the  care  of  two  practically  motherless 
little  girls.  In  the  Ballad  of  Bouillabaisse  there  are  allu- 
sions to  this  terrible  time. 

Thackeray  was  both  artist  and  man  of  letters.  At  the 
beginning  of  his  life  he  even  leaned  to  the  pencil  rather  than 
to  the  pen.  But  he  could  not  draw,  and  it  is  fortunate  for 
the  world  that  in  the  end  literature  rather  than  art  became 
his  calling.  He  continued  to  illustrate  his  own  books,  and, 
faulty  though  his  drawings  are,  as  aids  to  the  text  his 
illustrations  are  admirable.  It  is  his  pencil  which  strips  off 
the  gorgeous  ermine  mantle  of  the  royal  Ludovicus  Rex, 
and  puts  beside  it  the  poor  little  shivering  "  forked  radish  " 
Ludovicus. 

Thackeray's  early  writings  were  mainly  produced  for 
periodicals — Fraser's  Magazine,  The  New  Monthly  Maga- 
zine, The  Times.  From  1842  to  1854  he  was  a  regular 
contributor  to  Punch,  for  which  he  only  ceased  to  write 
because  he  did  not  sympathise  with  its  attitude  towards 
Napoleon  III.  The  Book  of  Snobs,  one  of  the  most  charac- 
teristic of  Thackeray's  works,  is  composed  of  articles  which 
originally  appeared  in  Punch.  The  Yellowplush  Papers, 
The  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond  and  Barry  Lyndon  came  out 
in  Frasers  Magazine.  All  these,  as  well  as  the  Paris  and 
Irish  Sketch  Books  and  the  Notes  of  a  Journey  from  Cornhill 


124  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

to  Grand  Cairo,  belong  to  the  first  period  of  Thackeray's 
work,  which  may  be  taken  to  end  in  1846.  Vanity  Fair ; 
which  appeared  in  1847 — 1848,  was  the  first,  work  of  his 
second  and  greater  period.  In  the  earlier  list  Barry  Lyndon, 
the  autobiography  of  a  scoundrel,  gave  proof  of  very  great 
intellectual  force,  but  it  can  never  take  rank  with  his  highest 
efforts,  Vanity  Fair,  Esmond,  Pendennis  and  The  Newcomes. 
These  were  all,  except  Esmond,  written  to  the  call  of  the 
printer  waiting  for  copy,  and  with  this  one  exception  they 
are  faulty  in  construction.  From  the  fact  that  Esmond  is 
singularly  well  constructed  we  may  infer  that,  had  Thackeray 
been  sufficiently  provident  and  strenuous  to  write  his  story 
beforehand,  he  would  have  ranked- among  the  masters  of 
the  art  of  construction. 

Esmond  is  a  historical  novel,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid 
in  the  time  of  Queen  Anne.  The  Virginians  also  is 
historical ;  as  is  likewise  the  fragment  Denis  Duval,  which 
Thackeray  did  not  live  to  finish.  We  know  too  that  he 
thought  and  talked  in  his  family  about  another  historical 
subject  which  he  never  even  began  to  treat.  It  seems  there- 
fore that  Esmond  was  no  mere  chance  excursion  into  the 
field  of  history.  It  indicates  the  growth  in  his  mind  of  the 
romantic  element  and  a  partial  abandonment  of  the  more 
realistic  themes  with  which  he  started.  Nevertheless, 
because  of  the  predominant  character  of  what  he  wrote 
during  his  great  period,  Thackeray  must  remain  for  us 
essentially  a  realist — meaning  here  by  that  word  a  man 
who  was  determined  to  depict  life  as  it  actually  was  and 
as  he  knew  it.  Pendennis  and  The  Newcomes  are  both 
pictures  of  the  modern  world  with  its  virtues  unheightened 
and  its  vices  unconcealed — or  at  least  concealed  no  more 
than  was  made  necessary  by  a  sense  of  decency,  as  some 
would  say,  or  of  prudery,  as  others  would  call  it.  But  we 
must  be  on  our  guard  against  supposing  that  every  work 
necessarily  depicts  the  whole  world.  In  a  most  illuminating^ 


THACKERAY  125 

sentence  regarding  Vanity  Fair  Thackeray  tells  us  that  he 
intended  "  to  make  a  set  of  people  living  without  God  in  the 
world  (only  that  is  a  cant  phrase),  greedy,  pompous  men, 
perfectly  satisfied  for  the  most  part,  and  at  ease  about  their 
superior  virtue."  In  this  book  his  Crawleys,  Sedleys,  and 
Lord  Steyne  are  all  he  meant  them  to  be.  We  can  see  then 
that  to  the  charge  that  he  gives  a  one-sided  view  Thackeray 
would  reply  that  he  never  meant  to  give  anything  else. 
But  the  reply  is  not  convincing.  The  impression  produced 
is  in  point  of  fact  wrong,  and  the  method  is  not  the  method 
of  Shakespeare,  who  balances  evil  with  a  weight  of  good 
which  bears  a  fair  proportion  to  it.  It  is  true  that  Thackeray 
makes  us  recognise  evil  and  loathe  it.  He  also  leads  us 
on  until  we  see  the  evildoer  enter  into  a  hell  of  his  own 
creation  and  shut  behind  him  by  his  own  actions  the  door 
of  escape.  Beatrix  Esmond  spent  her  life  breaking  hearts, 
and  we  see  her  ending  it  in  unrespected  old  age.  Thackeray 
is  always  teaching  us  that  we  cannot  escape  the  law  of  the 
harvest.  We  must  reap  in  autumn  what  we  sow  in  spring. 
We  resent  this  preaching,  and  yet  again  we  call  him  cynic. 
The  judgment  of  Charlotte  Bronte  is  a  worthy  answer 
to  that  charge,  if  the  creator  of  such  noble  characters  as 
Colonel  Esmond  and  Colonel  Newcome  needs  any  defence. 
"  Whenever,"  she  says,  "  Thackeray  writes,  Mephistopheles 
stands  on  his  right  hand  and  Raphael  on  his  left;  the 
great  doubter  and  sneerer  usually  guides  the  pen,  the  angel, 
noble  and  gentle,  interlines  letters  of  light  here  and  there." 
Still,  as  there  is  no  smoke  without  fire,  so  the  charge  of 
cynicism  against  Thackeray  has  a  certain  truth  behind  it, 
as  also  has  the  criticism  that  he  produced  novels  without 
heroes,  that  his  characters  are,  with  few  exceptions,  morally 
commonplace,  or  worse.  To  this  charge  he  answers  that 
the  really  great  are  very  rare.  The  answer  is  true  ;  but  it 
is  also  true  that  they  are  of  first-rate  importance,  and  to 
ignore  them  is  a  grave  mistake. 


126  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

Besides  writing  books  Thackeray  lectured  both  in 
England  and  in  America.  The  lectures  were  the  most 
profitable  of  all  his  literary  enterprises,  the  two  sets,  The 
English  Humourists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  and  The 
Four  Georges,  bringing  him  in  a  total  of  ^"9500.  The 
Humourists,  like  Esmond,  illustrates  his  profound  know- 
ledge of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  well  as  his  fine  literary 
taste.  No  one  else  has  ever  made  himself  live  in  that 
period  as  Thackeray  did.  No  one  else  has  so  marvellously 
caught  its  true  style  as  he  does  in  Esmond. 

Thackeray  died  very  suddenly  on  Christmas  eve  at  the 
age  of  fifty-two.  He  left  unfinished  Denis  Duval,  of  which 
Dickens  wrote :  "  In  respect  of  earnest  feeling,  far-seeing 
purpose,  character,  incident,  and  a  certain  loving  pic- 
turesqueness  blending  the  whole,  I  believe  it  to  be  much  the 
best  of  all  his  works."  He  left  no  successor  or  disciple,  unless 
it  was  George  du  Maurier  (1834 — 1896)  whose  Trilby  has 
more  of  Thackeray's  spirit  than  any  other  book  in  English. 

§  4.      Women  Novelists 

Before  considering  individually  the  women  novelists 
of  the  Victorian  period  it  will  be  interesting  to  see  how 
they  appeared  to  the  great  French  statesman  and  historian 
Guizot,  and  how  much  superior  he  found  their  work  to  that 
of  his  own  countrywomen.  "  I  am  a  great  novel  reader,"  he 
says,  "  but  I  seldom  read  German  or  French  novels.  The 
characters  are  too  artificial.  There  are  too  many  forced 
situations,  and  the  morality  is  generally  detestable.  My 
delight  is  to  read  English  novels,  particularly  those  written 
by  women.  C'est  toute  une  tcole  de  morale.  Miss  Austen, 
Miss  Ferrier,  Charlotte  Bronte,  George  Eliot,  Mrs  Gaskell, 
and  many  others  almost  as  remarkable,  form  a  school 
which  in  the  excellence,  the  profusion,  and  the  contem- 
poraneousness of  its  productions,  resembles  the  crowd  of 
dramatic  poets  of  the  great  Athenian  age."  This  remarkable 


WOMEN   NOVELISTS  127 

tribute  of  praise  is  justified  by  an  examination  of  the  work 
women  have  accomplished  in  this  branch  of  literature.  In 
no  other  sphere  do  they  rise  to  the  first  rank.  There  has 
never  been  a  female  Shakespeare  ;  but  the  famous  French 
critic  Scherer  finds  George  Eliot  the  first  of  English 
novelists,  and  he  is  not  alone  in  this  judgment. 

The  three  Bronte  sisters  have  a  niche  in  literature  all  to 
themselves.  They  were  Charlotte  Bronte  (1816 — 1855), 
Emily  Bronte  (1818 — 1848)  and  Anne  Bronte  (1820— 
1849).  Their  father  was  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte,  an  Irish 
Protestant  of  County  Down  and  an  Orangeman.  He  was 
given  to  writing  occasional  verse.  In  1820  he  was  offered 
the  desolate  vicarage  of  Haworth  in  the  lonely  Yorkshire 
moors,  and  moved  thither  with  his  six  children,  five  girls 
and  one  boy,  who  was  then  the  idol  of  the  home,  but  who 
lived  to  be  its  greatest  sorrow.  The  father  led  a  secluded 
studious  life  in  the  bleak  parsonage,  where  the  children  were 
wholly  given  up  to  drawing,  dreaming,  reading  books 
meant  for  their  seniors,  and  wandering  alone  over  the 
wild  moors.  Ultimately  the  girls  were  sent  to  a  school 
at  Cowan  Bridge.  Two  of  them  died  there,  and  the 
younger  sisters  were  taken  away  in  1825.  The  genius 
of  Charlotte  has  given  us  a  picture  of  the  miseries  of 
"  Lowood "  School :  the  tragic  fate  of  her  sister  Maria 
is  told  in  Jane  Eyre  in  the  heartrending  account  of  the 
consumptive  girl  Helen  Burns,  with  her  racking  cough, 
dying  in  the  cold  fireless  dormitory.  It  was  during 
these  school  days  that  Charlotte  heard  the  story  of  the 
man  with  the  mad  wife,  who  felt  himself  morally  free  to 
leave  her  and  marry  again ;  and  this  story  suggested  to 
her  the  idea  of  Rochester  in  the  same  novel.  The  history 
of  the  second  period  of  the  school  life  of  the  Bronte  girls 
has  been  embodied  in  Shirley,  and  their  third  and  last 
educational  experience  in  Brussels  furnished  material  for 
the  two  novels  Villette  and  The  Professor. 


128  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

Charlotte  Bronte  only  wrote  these  four  novels.  The 
Professor^  though  it  was  not  published  till  after  her  death, 
is  an  earlier  and  cruder  performance  than  the  others. 
When  she  offered  it  for  publication  the  publishers  thought 
it  wanting  in  excitement  and  interest,  and  they  told  her 
so.  With  characteristic  good  sense  the  authoress  recog- 
nised her  mistake  and  set  about  correcting  it.  In  Jane 
Eyre  the  heroine  is  a  governess,  plain  and  homely,  but 
fascinating ;  the  hero  is  an  improbable  and  unpleasant 
person  who  pursues  his  wooing  in  Byronic  fashion ;  and 
the  scene  is  laid  in  a  terrible  house  where  the  upper  story 
is  used  as  an  asylum  for  the  mad  wife.  The  incidents 
are  a  dinner  party,  a  country  walk  and  a  fire.  Yet  out 
of  these  unromantic  materials  Charlotte  Bronte  made  a 
story  which  enthralled  men  like  Lockhart,  G.  H.  Lewes 
and  Thackeray.  Thus  she  became  the  "  daughter  of 
debate,"  discussed  everywhere,  and  feted  and  lionised  when 
she  visited  London  at  the  suggestion  of  her  publishers. 
The  best  part  of  her  book  relates  to  her  school  experiences. 
In  all  the  Bronte  writings  there  is  scarcely  anything  good 
which  cannot  be  traced  back  to  incidents  in  their  own 
lives.  For  this  reason  it  is  doubtful  whether,  had  they 
lived  longer,  they  would  have  been  able  to  add  much  of 
value  to  their  writings. 

The  early  plan  the  sisters  cherished  of  holding  a  school 
in  Haworth  Vicarage  being  made  impossible  by  the  dissi- 
pated habits  of  their  brother,  after  the  success  of  Jane 
Eyre  they  gave  themselves  up  to  literary  work  at  home. 
Their  lives  were  hard,  cheerless  and  full  of  suffering. 
There  was  little  cause  for  laughter  in  their  home,  and  in 
their  books  the  want  of  mirth  is  a  marked  defect.  Emily 
especially  was  full  of  gloom  and  harsh  reserve.  The 
story  told  in  Shirley  of  the  mad  dog  happened  to  her. 
When  the  animal  bit  her  she  applied  cautery  with  her 
own  hand,  telling  no  one  until  after  the  danger  was  over. 


WOMEN   NOVELISTS  129 

Charlotte,  writing  of  her  in  the  biographical  sketch,  says 
that  she  was  "  stronger  than  a  man,  simpler  than  a  child, 
her  nature  stood  alone."  Arnold  wrote  that  her  soul — 

"  Knew  no  fellow  for  might, 
Passion,  vehemence,  grief, 
Daring,  since  Byron  died." 

Of  Wuthering  Heights  Dante  Rossetti  said  that  "  the  action 
is  laid  in  hell,  only  it  seems  places  and  people  have 
English  names  there."  Her  verse  includes  a  few  pieces 
of  rare  excellence.  Of  the  three  sisters  Emily  alone 
possessed  the  gift  of  poetry.  What  this  great  gloomy 
genius  might  have  become  had  she  lived  her  full  span, 
no  one  can  say ;  but  she  died  at  thirty,  "  torn,"  her 
sister  says,  "  conscious,  panting,  reluctant,  though  reso- 
lute, out  of  a  happy  life."  Anne  was  a  contrast.  She 
died  leaving  as  her  farewell  to  the  world  some  verses 
whose  meek  submissiveness  makes  them  very  touch- 
ing. She  was  by  far  the  weakest  of  the  sisters,  and 
but  for  Charlotte  and  Emily  her  name  would  not  be 
remembered. 

Charlotte  was  now  left  alone.  Six  years  after  Emily's 
death  she  married  her  father's  curate  Mr  Nicholls,  who 
appears  in  Shirley  as  Mr  McCarthy.  It  is  said  that  he 
was  not  the  hero  of  her  dreams;  yet  on  her  deathbed  a 
year  later,  as  her  life  was  ebbing  out  "  she  caught  the 
sound  of  some  murmured  words  of  prayer  that  God  would 
spare  her.  '  Oh/  she  whispered  forth,  '  I  am  not  going 
to  die,  am  I  ?  He  will  not  separate  us,  we  have  been  so 
happy.' "  This  description  of  her  last  moments  is  given  in 
the  beautiful  biography  written  by  her  friend  and  fellow 
craftswoman  Mrs  Gaskell. 

We  think  of  Mrs  Gaskell  primarily  as  a  novelist,  but 
by  virtue  of  The  Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte'  she  is  also  one  of 
the  very  small  group  of  writers  who  have  enriched  literature 
with  biographies  of  permanent  worth.  Elizabeth  Cleghorn 

w.  9 


130  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

Gaskell  (1810 — 1865)  was  the  daughter  of  William  Steven- 
son, at  one  time  a  Unitarian  minister.  She  was  born  at 
Knutsford,  in  Cheshire,  the  old-world  village  which  she 
has  immortalised  as  Cranford.  It  lies  almost  within  sound 
of  the  busy  hum  of  the  manufacturing  towns  of  Lancashire, 
but  was  then  asleep  itself  with  the  stillness  of  perpetual 
Sunday.  Miss  Stevenson  married  a  Unitarian  minister 
living  in  Manchester,  and  in  that  city  she  found  materials 
for  the  novels  which  give  us  pictures  of  the  struggle  be- 
tween capital  and  labour  about  the  middle  of  last  century. 
In  Mary  Barton  Mrs  Gaskell  tried  to  rouse  sympathy  on 
behalf  of  the  workers  and  to  show  the  evils  which  had 
grown  up  with  the  factory  system.  She  saw  that  the 
employers  of  labour  too  often  felt  no  responsibility  for 
their  workmen,  and  lived  in  luxury  themselves,  while 
their  hands  were  herded  together  like  brutes.  The  pic- 
ture of  the  employer  Carson  in  this  book  aroused  much 
angry  feeling  among  the  masters ;  and  perhaps  in  North 
and  South  she  was  trying  to  balance  matters  when  she 
introduced  the  character  of  Thornton,  who,  though  not 
faultless,  has  more  sympathy  with  his  work-folk  than  the 
brutal  Carson.  She  recognised  that  the  evils  of  the  factory 
system  were  not  the  outcome  of  wickedness  on  the  side 
either  of  the  employers  or  the  employed,  but  were  due 
to  the  absence  of  kindly  human  relations  between  them. 
This  truth  she  set  herself  to  preach  in  her  later  Lancashire 
stories. 

But  Mrs  Gaskell's  work  of  highest  merit  is  Cranford. 
Had  she  written  a  few  more  books  like  it,  she  must  have 
ranked  among  the  best  of  English  novelists.  Her  forty 
odd  stories  have  much  that  we  value.  Grace,  goodness 
and  kindliness  of  heart  are  never  absent  from  them,  and 
for  these  qualities  and  her  gentle  mirth  Mrs  Gaskell  ranks 
with  Charles  Lamb  and  Goldsmith  among  the  authors  we 
not  only  admire  but  love. 


WOMEN   NOVELISTS  131 

Mrs  Gaskell's  great  contemporary  Mary  Ann  Evans, 
who  is  better  known  to  us  as  George  Eliot  (1819 — 1880), 
was  born  in  Warwickshire  just  nine  years  after  her.  The 
old  Elizabethan  houses,  thatched  cottages,  green  lanes  and 
rich  parks  of  that  county  are  to  her  work  what  the  quiet 
landscapes  of  Cheshire,  or  the  barren  rugged  moorlands  of 
Yorkshire  were  to  her  sister  novelists.  Her  father  was  a 
land  agent  and  farmer  near  Coventry,  her  mother  died  when 
she  was  seventeen,  and  she  had  then  to  take  up  the  duties 
of  mistress  of  her  father's  house.  She  took  great  pride  in 
her  butter  and  cheese  making  and  in  the  general  excellence 
of  her  household  management,  and  held  to  the  end  of  her 
life  a  high  opinion  of  the  life  of  practical  usefulness  for 
women.  "  Did  you  not  then  find  enough  to  interest  you 
in  your  family  ?  "  was  the  question  she  addressed  to  a 
mother  who  had  published  a  novel.  Apparently  George 
Eliot  thought  that  had  she  been  given  the  privilege  of  being 
the  mother  of  children  she  would  not  have  written  books. 

In  early  life  Miss  Evans  found  time  to  study  French, 
German,  Italian  and  the  classics.  To  music  she  was 
devoted.  She  was  also  deeply  religious.  But  after  her 
removal  with  her  father  to  the  nearer  neighbourhood  of 
Coventry  she  came  under  influences  which  greatly  strength- 
ened certain  doubts  she  had  begun  to  feel,  and  caused  her 
to  change  her  views  and  to  refuse  to  go  to  church.  At  a 
later  date  she  regretted  her  refusal  because  of  the  pain 
it  gave  her  father;  but  her  opinions  never  moved  back  to 
the  current  views  of  church-goers.  She  was  profoundly 
interested  in  the  subject  and  her  earliest  writings  were 
upon  religious  topics.  She  translated  Strauss's  Life  of 
Jesus  and  Feuerbach's  Essence  of  Christianity.  This  proof 
of  scholarship  procured  for  her  the  post  of  assistant 
editor  of  The  Westminster  Review,  to  which  her  most 
notable  contribution  is  her  paper  on  Worldliness  and  Other- 
Worldliness. 

9—2 


132  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

It  was  not  until  her  friend  G.  H.  Lewes,  who  ultimately 
became  her  husband,  suggested  fiction  to  her  that  she  found 
her  true  calling.  Amos  Barton,  the  first  of  the  Scenes  of 
Clerical  Life,  was  introduced  by  Lewes  to  the  Blackwoods 
as  the  work  of  a  sensitive  and  diffident  friend ;  and  it  was 
during  the  correspondence  with  the  publishers  that  the 
name  of  George  Eliot  was  adopted.  The  sensitiveness  and 
diffidence  were  real,  and  it  is  said  that  she  handled  her 
latest  works  with  the  same  trembling  fingers  and  nervous 
bearing  as  when  she  was  still  an  unknown  writer.  The 
clerical  scenes  made  the  new  writer  famous;  while  the 
great  novels  Adam  Bede,  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,  and  Silas 
Marner  raised  her  to  a  position  among  the  foremost  living 
writers. 

As  George  Eliot  painted  her  landscapes  from  the 
scenes  she  knew,  so  she  drew  her  characters  from  the 
people  among  whom  she  lived.  Her  father,  mother, 
brother,  sister,  her  aunt  and  herself,  all  appear  in  those 
early  novels.  When  this  rich  vein  of  reminiscences  and 
of  old  memories  threatened  to  become  exhausted  she  felt 
she  must  search  for  new  material.  She  therefore  turned 
to  Italy,  to  politics  and  history,  and  to  the  problems  of 
race  for  her  subjects.  So  it  came  about  that  in  Romola  we 
learn  of  the  great  religious  conflict  of  the  fifteenth  century 
in  Florence ;  in  Felix  Holt  we  are  back  in  England  watch- 
ing the  struggle  between  the  conservative  upper  class  and 
the  radical  reformer  Felix ;  in  Daniel  Deronda  we  are  taken 
among  the  Hebrews  and  are  directed  to  the  problems  of 
heredity  and  to  the  social  difficulties  of  the  English  Jew. 
There  is  effort  and  strain  in  these  books,  they  represent 
much  knowledge,  and  cost  their  creator  considerable  pain 
to  produce.  They  are  admirable  of  their  kind,  but  all 
inferior  to  the  more  spontaneous  early  novels.  Middle- 
march  takes  its  place  among  her  great  works,  because 
in  it  she  writes  again  of  English  country  life,  of  the 


WOMEN   NOVELISTS  133 

things  she  has  always  known,  the  things  that  are  part  of 
herself. 

Touches  of  delightful  humour  are  not  absent  from  the 
books  in  which  she  went  outside  her  own  experiences,  but 
they  are  rare  ;  and  in  these  books  we  should  not,  as  we  do 
in  Adam  Bede,  recognise  humour  as  one  of  her  principal 
gifts.  In  that  novel  and  in  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  her 
characters  are  not,  it  is  true,  conscious  mirth-makers,  like 
Falstafif,  but  they  are  unconsciously  amusing.  George  Eliot 
had  actually  heard  the  delightful  conversations  of  Mrs 
Poyser  and  her  sisters  upon  cooking  recipes,  bed-covers 
and  other  treasured  family  heirlooms  and  belongings.  It 
is  in  such  simple  homely  scenes  that  she  reveals  her  sense 
of  humour. 

Sympathy  is  another  of  the  characteristics  of  George 
Eliot,  and  it  comes  out  very  prominently  in  her  treatment 
of  religion  and  of  clergymen.  In  her  attitude  towards 
ministers  of  religion  she  contrasts  strikingly  with  Charlotte 
Bronte,  who  seldom  introduces  a  clerical  character  into  her 
pages  without  a  sneer  at  him.  Perhaps  the  absence  of  any 
creed  in  the  mind  of  George  Eliot  and  the  struggles  she 
had  made  to  retain  one  gave  her  a  fuller  comprehension  of 
the  mental  difficulties  of  the  clerical  life,  just  as  her  own 
very  debatable  action  in  marriage  made  her  unusually 
sensitive  to  the  sacredness  of  the  bond  and  the  great 
beauty  and  high  possibilities  of  wedded  life.  In  her  books 
George  Eliot  makes  marriage  the  source  of  nearly  all 
tragedy,  as  well  as  of  the  deepest  happiness  in  life.  It 
is  the  influence  which  either  makes  or  mars  a  character. 

George  Eliot's  mind  had  a  very  argumentative  bias. 
She  was  driven  by  her  intellect  to  question  everything. 
"  I  admit  discussion,"  she  says,  "  upon  every  matter  except 
dinners  and  debts.  I  hold  that  the  first  must  be  eaten  and 
the  second  must  be  paid.  These  are  my  only  prejudices." 
This  philosophic  attitude  is  judged  a  virtue  by  the  critics 


134  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

who  think  her  most  learned  and  philosophical  novels  the 
best.  That  was  the  view  of  some  contemporaries,  but  of 
very  few  at  the  present  day.  To  Swinburne  these  novels 
showed  how  irretrievably  and  intolerably  wrong  it  was 
possible  for  even  the  highest  intellect,  as  distinguished 
from  genius,  to  go. 

George  Eliot  died  in  December  1880,  having  in  the 
early  part  of  the  same  year  married  her  second  husband 
Mr  J.  W.  Cross,  who  has  written  her  biography. 

Among  the  other  female  writers  of  fiction,  whose  name 
is  legion,  there  is  none  to  rival  George  Eliot  in  power  and 
range  of  thought,  or  Charlotte  Bronte  in  passion,  nor  is 
there  any  to  whom  literature  is  indebted  for  such  a  gem 
as  Cranford.  Probably  not  a  single  novel  they  have 
written  will  be  read  half  a  century  hence  except  by  a 
few  students.  There  are  however  two  or  three  who  de- 
mand notice  because  of  their  temporary  fame,  and  one, 
Mrs  Oliphant,  for  powers  which,  if  she  had  not  been 
obliged  to  write  in  order  to  live,  might  have  gained  for 
her  a  permanent  place  in  literature. 

Margaret  Oliphant  (1828 — 1897)  began  her  work  with 
the  novel  of  Margaret  Maitland,  about  which  the  critic 
Jeffrey  wrote  that  nothing  so  true  and  touching  had  ap- 
peared as  a  picture  of  Scottish  life  since  Gait's  Annals  of 
the  Parish.  Mrs  Oliphant's  best  stories  treat  of  Scotland 
and  Scotch  people.  Outside  that  sphere  perhaps  her 
greatest  successes  were  the  series  known  as  The  Chronicles 
of  Carlingford)  where  she  was  bold  enough  to  venture  upon 
ground  not  unlike  that  which  George  Eliot  had  made  her 
own.  Mrs  Oliphant  was  a  very  rapid  and  easy  writer, 
and  amidst  her  many  domestic  cares  in  the  rearing  and 
educating  of  a  family  she  managed  to  produce  good  bio- 
graphies and  other  books  less  good,  besides  the  innumer- 
able stories  which  poured  from  her  pen.  Yet  her  family 
said  they  never  knew  when  she  worked.  Undoubtedly 


CONTEMPORARIES   OF   DICKENS          135 

her  books  suffered.  She  has  written  nothing  that  is 
likely  to  live,  but  here  and  there  we  find  in  her  work 
passages  of  a  lofty  tone  which  prove  that  she  had  the 
power  under  favourable  circumstances  to  have  produced 
a  really  great  book. 

Of  the  other  two  or  three  novelists  referred  to,  Mrs 
Henry  Wood   (1814 — 1887)   by   her   East  Lynne  gained 
a  remarkable   hold    upon   the   lovers  of  sensation,  while 
Dinah    Maria   Craik  (1826 — 1887)  by  her  John  Halifax, 
Gentleman,  caught  the  fancy  of  the  more  sober-minded. 
East  Lynne  has  no  small  share  of  the  merits  and  faults 
of  Lord  Lytton's  work.     It  is  Mrs  Wood's  best  book ;  but 
her  pen  was  very  prolific  and  the  readers  of  the  sixties 
counted  upon  her  for  a  new  novel  yearly  in  her  magazine 
The  Argosy.      The  Heir  of  Redclyffe  is  another  famous 
book  of  the  same  period.      It  was  written  by  Charlotte 
Mary  Yonge  (1823 — 1901)  who  supplied  the  light  literature 
which  schoolgirls  read  half  a  century  ago.      The  author 
of   The  Daisy  Chain,   The  Chaplet  of  Pearls,  etc.  might 
be   passed  over   unnamed    but  for   the  esteem   in  which 
The   Heir  of  Redclyffe  was  held    by  the  young   Oxford 
school   of  the  time.     One  of  them,  who  was  associated 
with  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  has  spoken  of  it  as  "  unquestion- 
ably one  of  the  greatest  books  in  the  world,"  and  men  so 
great  as  Burne  Jones,  William  Morris  and  Rossetti  seem 
to  have  been  warm   admirers.      At  the   present  day  we 
can  only  note  the  fact  and  wonder.     The  world  has  been 
content  to  forget  one  of  its  greatest  books,  and  when  the 
pages  are  opened  now  they  seem  weak  and  sentimental. 

§  5.     Contemporaries  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray 

From  the  immense  heap  of  novels  which  were  written 
in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  is  possible 
to  pick  out  a  few  which  may  indicate  the  spirit  of  the 


136  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 


age.  The  easily-written  tales  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  were 
succeeded  by  historical  novels  which  the  writers  took  very 
seriously.  George  Eliot  went  to  Florence  to  study  old 
documents  in  order  to  supply  herself  with  the  materials  for 
Romola\  Charles  Kingsley  read  all  that  he  could  find  about 
Egyptian  learning  in  order  to  write  his  story  of  Hypatia ; 
and  Charles  Reade  ransacked  the  libraries  for  documents 
bearing  upon  the  Protestant  Reformation  before  he  began 
The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth.  The  author  of  the  Waverley 
Novels  had  a  much  more  direct  and  simple  method.  When 
he  had  not  a  suitable  incident  he  invented  one,  and  when 
his  critics  pointed  out  mistakes,  he  smiled  and  directed 
their  attention  to  others  which  they  had  not  noticed. 

The  spirit  which  insists  upon  fidelity  in  historical  novels 
is  a  phase  of  what  is  known  as  realism  ;  but  the  taste  it 
indicates,  which  was  characteristic  of  this  period  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  was  more  easily  gratified  in  another  way  than 
by  the  historical  novel.  The  natural  response  to  it  was  the 
novel  of  contemporary  life  ;  and  this  is  the  species  of  novel 
which  chiefly  prevailed  during  the  years  about  which  we  are 
writing.  There  were  endless  varieties  of  the  species — senti- 
mental, romantic,  comic,  sarcastic,  psychological,  religious. 
But  there  was  one  variety,  the  novel  of  purpose,  so  im- 
portant and  so  comprehensive  that  it  requires  special  notice. 
No  type  of  novel  has  been  the  subject  of  more  discussion. 
It  is  anathema  to  the  devotees  of  "  art  for  art's  sake."  But 
in  reality  it  is  good  or  bad,  not  in  itself,  but  according  as 
the  purpose  is  worked  out.  The  valid  objection  is  not  to 
the  presence  of  purpose,  but  to  making  character  and 
artistic  beauty  subservient  to  the  purpose.  Undoubtedly 
this  is  a  temptation  which  besets  the  novelist  of  purpose, 
and  there  .are  instances  in  the  works  of  Dickens,  Reade 
and  others,  in  which  the  temptation  has  not  been  resisted. 

Charles  Reade  (1814 — 1884)  was  the  son  of  an  Oxford- 
shire squire,  and,  though  he  was  never  wealthy,  his  private 


CONTEMPORARIES   OF   DICKENS          137 

income  and  his  fellowship,  and  finally  his  position  of  Vice- 
President  of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  exempted  him 
from  the  need  to  write  in  order  to  live.  He  was  a  briefless 
barrister,  a  most  kind  and  generous  though  pugnacious 
man,  but  one  who  was  absolutely  wanting  in  self-knowledge. 
He  set  out  to  be  a  dramatist,  and  after  he  had  produced 
thirteen  plays  which  no  manager  would  venture  to  put 
upon  the  stage  he  still  obstinately  refused  to  recognise 
failure  and  try  his  powers  elsewhere.  "  Why  don't  you 
write  novels  ? "  asked  his  friend  Mrs  Seymour  the  actress, 
after  he  had  read  her  a  scene  from  one  of  those  dramas 
which  nobody  would  act.  She  saw  where  his  real  gifts 
lay,  and  her  judgment  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  Reade's 
most  successful  plays  were  written  in  collaboration.  One 
of  them  is  Masks  and  Faces,  in  which  Reade's  fellow- 
worker,  Tom  Taylor,  was  one  of  the  most  popular  play- 
wrights of  his  time.  At  the  age  of  thirty-nine  Reade 
yielded  to  necessity  and  turned  to  the  novel,  though  he  did 
not  abandon  the  drama.  The  ambition  he  still  cherished 
is  indicated  by  the  inscription  which  he  directed  to  be  put 
upon  his  tombstone.  There  he  is  described  as  "  dramatist, 
novelist,  journalist."  Thus  the  first  place  is  given  to  the 
art  in  which  he  had  most  ambition  to  achieve  fame,  rather 
than  to  that  in  which  he  won  it. 

Reade's  great  maxim  was  never  to  guess  where  he  could 
know  ;  and  at  whatever  trouble  or  cost  to  himself  he  acted 
on  this  principle.  When  he  wanted  fisher-folk  for  his 
novel  Christie  Johnstone,  although  he  was  a  severe  sufferer 
from  sea  sickness,  he  would  not  content  himself  with 
studying  the  fishermen  on  shore,  but  frequently  accom- 
panied them  on  their  fishing  expeditions.  And  although 
in  youth  he  had  given  up  his  idea  of  being  a  doctor  because 
of  his  shrinking  from  the  sight  of  blood,  he  lamented 
missing  the  sight  of  a  fatal  accident,  because  he  was  con- 
vinced that  no  description  could  ever  give  him  the  vividness 


138  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

of  a  direct  impression.  He  was  never  tired  of  repeating 
that  "  truth  is  stranger  than  fiction " ;  and  he  took  so 
much  pains  to  discover  what  the  facts  were  that  it  is 
dangerous  to  challenge  his  most  surprising  statements. 
But  whether  he  was  altogether  wise  may  be  doubted.  He 
never  knew  the  profound  truth  of  Stevenson's  saying,  "  the 
actual  is  not  true."  Stevenson  meant  that  truth  of  fact  is 
not  always  the  same  as  artistic  truth.  And  Reade,  though 
he  can  quote  chapter  and  verse  in  support  of  the  most 
unusual  occurrences  in  his  novels,  has  told  stories  which 
sometimes  "  affect  us  as  a  lie."  Nevertheless  his  careful 
accumulation  of  human  documents  has  given  weight  and 
solidity  to  his  novels,  and  his  skilful  use  of  his  materials 
will  make  them  wear  well. 

Reade's  long  persistence  in  dramatic  work,  the  great 
preparations  he  considered  necessary  for  his  stories,  and 
the  various  lawsuits  in  which  he  found  himself  engaged 
swallowed  up  so  much  of  life  that  his  total  output  of  books 
is  not  large.  It  is  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend  was  the  first  of 
his  books  to  win  a  great  success.  It  is  a  picture  of  gaol 
life  drawn  from  an  inspection  of  several  prisons,  and 
among  them  the  very  Reading  gaol  which  has  been  im- 
mortalised by  Oscar  Wilde's  poem,  The  Ballad  of  Reading 
Gaol.  Reade's  novel  had  for  its  object  the  reformation  of 
prison  discipline.  Eden,  the  prison  reformer,  is  an  intensely 
interesting  man,  and  Susan  Morton  is  one  of  the  best  of 
Reade's  female  characters.  Hard  Cash,  a  story  much  less 
attractive  than  It  is  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend,  is  intended  to 
expose  the  abuses  of  lunatic  asylums.  Griffith  Gaunt,  with 
jealousy  as  its  leading  vice,  drew  down  much  unfavourable 
criticism;  but  the  subject  which  Shakespeare  handled  in 
Othello  has  surely  a  right  to  artistic  treatment.  There  was 
more  cause  to  object  in  the  case  of  A  Terrible  Temptation. 

But  none  of  these  works  of  Reade  contains  characters 
or  creations  equal  to  the  husband-monk  Gerard,  and  his 


CONTEMPORARIES   OF   DICKENS          139 

beautiful  wife  Margaret  Brandt,  in  The  Cloister  and  the 
Hearth.  This  book  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  English  novels. 
Its  theme,  as  the  name  suggests,  is  the  struggle  between 
religion  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  claims  of  a  home  on  the 
other.  The  scene  is  laid  in  the  fifteenth  century.  Few 
writers  could  have  filled  a  canvas  so  extraordinarily  large  ; 
but  Reade  is  completely  successful,  and  the  interest  in  the 
story  never  flags. 

Next  perhaps  in  importance  to  Reade,  among  the  men 
who  were  social  reformers  as  well  as  novelists,  was  Charles 
Kingsley  (1819 — 1875),  a  man  of  multifarious  activity — 
professor  of  history  at  Cambridge,  parson  and  poet,  as  well 
as  novelist.  But  though  he  wrote  some  fine  lyrics,  and 
though  there  are  some  who  hold  that  The  Saint's  Tragedy 
is  his  greatest  production,  it  is  for  his  works  in  prose 
fiction  that  he  is  best  remembered.  The  majority  of  them 
fall  under  the  head  either  of  novels  of  purpose  or  of  his- 
torical romances.  To  the  former  class  belong  Yeast  and 
Alton  Locke  >  which  are  among  the  best  expositions  of 
what  was  then  known  as  Christian  Socialism.  They  were 
written  under  the  influence  of  Carlyle,  and,  unlike  Reade's 
novels  of  purpose,  are  rather  attacks  upon  the  whole 
social  system  than  assaults  upon  particular  abuses.  One 
of  the  favourite  doctrines  of  Kingsley  was  that  the  work- 
ing man  who  raised  himself  above  his  class  was  a  traitor 
to  it.  He  could  see  no  possibility  of  permanent  improve- 
ment in  any  class,  if  the  best  always  moved  into  the 
next  higher.  This  theory,  applied  with  thorough-going 
consistency,  would  result  in  a  system  of  caste.  Such  an 
outcome  was  far  from  the  thoughts  of  Kingsley.  He 
was  fiery  in  his  indignation  over  the  wrongs  and  distress 
of  the  labouring  classes  and  eager  to  find  a  way  of  helping 
them.  Kingsley 's  best  known  novels  are  Westward  Ho! 
and  Hereward  the  Wake.  Both  are  more  pleasing  to  boys 
than  to  men.  They  tell  thrilling  stories  of  the  sailors  of 


140  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

Queen  Elizabeth  and  of  the  Vikings'  sons.  The  story  of 
Hypatia  is  laid  in  the  time  when  Alexandria  was  the  centre 
of  society  and  of  learning.  The  Water  Babies  belongs  to" 
no  time.  It  is  an  exquisite  fairy  tale,  the  outcome  of 
Kingsley's  love  for  nature  and  for  young  things.  This 
spontaneous  expression  of  his  sensitiveness  to  the  charm 
of  outdoor  life  is  perhaps  the  best  of  all  his  works. 

Another  novelist  who  touched  his  high-water  mark  in 
writing  for  the  young  is  Thomas  Hughes  (1823 — 1896),  the 
author  of  Tom  Brown 's  School  Days.  This  book  gives  the 
best  picture  we  have  of  Rugby  School  under  the  master- 
ship of  Arnold.  Hughes  makes  no  plot,  while  plot  was 
the  speciality  of  Wilkie  Collins  (1824—1889),  the  best  of 
English  novelists  in  what  R.  L.  Stevenson  calls  "  the  art  of 
carpentry  "  in  fiction.  In  this  respect  his  Moonstone  is  per- 
haps unequalled,  and  his  Woman  in  White  is  very  good. 

Anthony  Trollope  (1815 — 1882)  was  a  man  of  much 
greater  calibre.  From  his  earliest  days  he  meant  to  be 
a  novelist,  but  his  mother,  who  was  herself  a  writer  of 
fiction,  made  him  instead  a  clerk  in  the  Post  Office. 
When  he  wrote  his  first  story,  The  Macdermots  of  Bally- 
cloran,  she  prophesied  its  failure  without  prejudicing  her 
mind  by  reading  it.  The  immediate  result  seemed  to 
justify  her.  For  ten  years  Trollope  had  no  success,  and 
then  The  Warden  brought  him  £9.  2s.  6d.  by  its  first 
year's  sale. 

No  effort  is  needed  to  read  Trollope's  books  and  none 
went  to  their  making.  Their  author  held  that  the  man  of 
letters  had  no  more  right  than  the  village  shoemaker  to 
pause  in  his  work  for  "  inspiration."  To  him  production  of 
stories  was  automatic,  and  when  one  was  completed  he 
started  another  with  the  same  rapidity  as  his  fellow  crafts- 
man the  worker  in  leather.  All  the  tales  belonging  to  his 
best  series  are  laid  in  Barsetshire,  a  county  which  he  created, 
giving  it  railways,  roads,  rivers,  villages,  and  in  his  novels 


GEORGE   MEREDITH    ,  141 

musing  upon  its  growth  or  decay  as  if  it  had  been  the  route 
of  his  daily  walk.  His  clerical  novels  are  his  greatest 
triumph,  yet,  when  he  located  his  cathedral  city  and  filled 
up  the  houses  of  the  Dean's  yard  with  their  ecclesiastical 
inhabitants,  Trollope  had  never  lived  in  a  cathedral  city, 
London  excepted,  nor  was  he  on  familiar  terms  even  with 
a  curate.  Among  the  clerical  novels  are  the  six  which 
begin  with  The  Warden  and  end  with  The  Last  Chronicle 
of  Barset.  Can  You  Forgive  Her?  Phineas  Finn  and  The 
Prime  Minister  belong  to  another  group,  whose  special 
interest  lies  in  the  fact  that  in  them  Trollope  makes  a 
deliberate  attempt  to  trace  the  process  of  development  in 
character,  and  to  show  how  it  is  affected  by  change  of 
circumstances  and  by  the  lapse  of  years.  But  he  was  less 
at  ease  with  the  Duke  of  Omnium  than  he  was  with  the 
folk  in  Dean's  yard.  His  natural  atmosphere  is  that  of 
the  professional  classes,  the  squires  and  the  parsons.  He 
deals  with  everyday  life.  His  biggest  sensation  is  a  clerical 
squabble  in  the  Cathedral  yard,  or  a  curtain  lecture  from 
Mrs  Proudie,  the  bishop's  wife.  Yet  we  find  ourselves 
reading  the  frank,  pleasant  stories  again  and  again  with 
increasing  satisfaction.  His  own  criticism  of  Framley 
Parsonage  gives  as  sound  an  estimate  of  his  work  as  can 
be  written  :  "  The  story  was  thoroughly  English,"  he  says. 
"  There  was  a  little  fox-hunting,  and  a  little  tuft-hunting, 
some  Christian  virtue  and  some  Christian  cant.  There  was 
no  heroism  and  no  villainy.  There  was  much  church,  but 
more  love-making." 

§  6.     George  Meredith 

While  Trollope  was  at  the  height  of  his  fame  George 
Meredith,  whose  work  as  a  poet  has  already  been  treated, 
was  known  only  to  a  very  few,  and  even  to  this  small  circle 
of  readers  he  was  a  puzzle.  His  first  important  story,  the 
curious  eastern  tale  The  S having  of  Shagpat,  was  pronounced 


142  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

by  George  Eliot  to  be  "  a  work  of  genius  and  of  poetical 
genius,"  and  declared  to  be  "a  new  Arabian  Night." 
Four  years  after  Shagpat  came  what  many  now  regard  as 
his  greatest  novel,  The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel.  Never- 
theless it  was  nineteen  years  before  the  public  asked  for  a 
second  edition.  In  this  book  we  have  the  famous  chapter 
entitled  Ferdinand  and  Miranda,  one  of  the  most  fascinating 
love-scenes  in  literature  ;  and  Mark  Twain  in  his  inimitable 
Tom  Sawyer  does  not  surpass  Meredith  in  his  picture  of 
the  boys  Richard  and  Ripton,  nor  show  more  complete 
understanding  of  the  ludicrous  stratagems  of  boy-nature. 
The  character  of  Sir  Austin  in  this  book  is  one  of  Mere- 
dith's masterpieces.  He  is  an  egoist — a  favourite  subject 
of  the  author.  There  is  Sir  Austin,  who  feels  that  he, 
not  Providence,  sits  at  the  seat  of  government,  and  Sir 
Willoughby  Patterne,  a  companion  portrait  in  The  Egoist, 
who  leans  upon  his  fifty  thousand  a  year,  and  expects  there- 
by to  come  to  terms  with  whom  he  will.  We  watch  them 
both  wreck  their  own  lives  and  the  lives  of  those  dependent 
upon  them  by  reason  of  their  overweening  self-confidence. 
Clara  Middleton,  the  girl  who  grew  tired  of  the  selfish  folly 
of  Sir  Willoughby,  ranks  with  Diana  of  the  Crossways 
among  the  finest  of  Meredith's  women.  The  description  of 
her  hair  is  one  of  the  novelist's  exquisite  pieces  of  word- 
painting — "This  way  and  that  the  little  lighter-coloured 
irreclaimable  curls  running  truant  from  the  comb  and  the 
knots — curls,  half  curls,  root  curls,  vine  ringlets,  wedding 
rings,  fledgling  feathers,  tufts  of  down,  blown  wisps — waved 
or  fell,  waved  over  or  up  or  involutedly,  loose  and  down- 
ward, in  the  form  of  small  silken  paws,  hardly  any  of  them 
much  thicker  than  a  crayon  shading,  cunninger  than  long 
round  locks  of  gold  to  trick  the  heart." 

Diana  of  tJu  Crossways  is  perhaps  Meredith's  most 
widely  read  book.  Its  heroine  is  believed  to  be  a  portrait 
of  the  Honourable  Mrs  Norton.  Meredith,  like  Thackeray, 


OTHER   STORY-TELLERS  143 

preferred  to  take  his  characters  from  the  upper  ranks  of 
society.  We  have,  it  is  true,  in  Evan  Harrington  the  story 
of  a  tailor's  son,  but  the  book  is  partly  family  history  and 
the  hero  is  always  wanting  to  forget  the  trade  from  which 
he  has  sprung.  Rhoda  Fleming  is  the  only  book  which 
finds  its  chief  interest  among  the  yeoman  class,  and  even 
in  it  the  reader  feels  that  the  heroines  Rhoda  and  especially 
Dahlia  are  princesses  in  disguise. 

Meredith's  power  of  drawing  female  characters  is  very 
remarkable.  Except  George  Eliot  he  had  no  rival  among 
contemporary  writers,  and  she  had  the  advantage  of  pos- 
sessing a  woman's  soul  and  heart.  But  Meredith's  imagi- 
nation gave  him  the  key ;  and  his  extraordinary  sympathy 
gave  him  the  light  by  which  to  understand  the  workings 
of  the  human  mind.  Oscar  Wilde  said  "  he  had  mastered 
every  thing  but  language."  The  answer  is  possible,  that 
it  remains  for  readers  to  learn  his  speech ;  Goethe  suggests 
somewhere  that  we  can  only  see  that  which  we  are  edu- 
cated to  see.  There  is  no  doubt  Meredith  delighted  in 
playing  pranks  with  his  style,  for  after  he  inherited  the 
legacy  which  gave  him  partial  independence  he  says,  "  I  > 
took  it  into  my  head  to  serve  these  gentlemen  (the  critics) 
a  strong  dose  of  my  most  indigestible  production."  The 
packet  labelled  "  indigestible "  contained  among  other 
things  One  of  our  Conquerors  and  The  Amazing  Marriage. 
In  the  latter  book  the  character  of  Woodseer  is  meant 
to  be  a  partial  portrait  of  R.  L.  Stevenson. 

§  7.     Other  Story-Tellers 

There  is  no  kinship  between  Meredith  and  the  group 
of  miscellaneous  story-tellers  now  to  be  considered.  They 
are  so  varied  in  their  methods  and  aims  that  they  can  hardly 
be  gathered  together  under  any  definite  name.  Chrono- 
logically the  first  is  George  MacDonald  (1824 — 1905). 


144  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

He  was  a  descendant  of  the  Highland  clan  who  came  to 
their  tragic  end  in  the  pass  of  Glencoe,  and  when  there  was 
an  opening  he  did  not  forget  to  recall  the  cruel  wrongs  of 
his  race.  He  was  born  in  Aberdeenshire,  and  did  for  that 
bleak  corner  of  Scotland  what  Mrs  Gaskell  did  for  Lanca- 
shire and  Mr  Barrie  has  done  for  Kirriemuir.  In  his  early 
life  MacDonald  was  a  preacher.  For  a  time  he  was  minister 
of  a  congregational  church  at  Arundel ;  but  his  teaching 
was  not  of  the  kind  approved  by  his  flock,  and  he  had  to 
resign.  In  the  field  of  literature,  to  which  he  then  gave 
himself  up,  he  never  ceased  to  be  a  moral  teacher,  and  every 
page  he  wrote  bears  witness  to  his  sincerity  and  faith. 
Robert  Falconer  is  his  best  novel.  In  general,  his  stories 
of  Scotland  are  better  than  those  of  which  the  scene 
is  laid  in  England.  In  the  latter  country  his  genius 
grows  dim  and  we  miss  the  full  free  expression  of  his 
Celtic  spirit. 

Much  of  this  spirit  is  to  be  found  in  The  Sin  Eater  and 
other  books  of  Highland  superstition  written  by  William 
Sharp  (1856 — 1905)  under  the  pseudonym  of  Fiona 
Macleod.  Sharp  wrote  also  under  his  own  name,  and  was 
a  poet  of  considerable  merit  as  well  as  a  writer  of  fiction. 
As  William  Sharp  he  must  be  ranked  among  the  Neo-Pre- 
Raphaelites  ;  as  Fiona  Macleod  he  is  a  writer  of  the  Celtic 
Revival.  The  two  phases  together  in  the  same  individual 
present  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  puzzling  of  literary 
problems.  How  are  we  to  explain  the  profound  knowledge 
of  the  Highland  Celt  shown  by  the  Lowlander,  a  native  of 
the  prosaic  industrial  town  of  Paisley,  and  his  perfect  sym- 
pathy with  the  life  and  feelings  and  language  of  another 
race1  ?  Sharp's  own  answer  was  that  it  was  a  case  of  dual 
personality.  The  works  published  under  the  name  of  Fiona 
Macleod  were  written  by  a  spirit  at  once  Celtic  and,  as  the 

1  Perhaps,  however,  this  is  only  the  judgment  of  the  Saxon.     There  are 
Gaels  who  cannot  abide  Fiona  Macleod. 


OTHER   STORY-TELLERS  145 

name  suggests,  feminine.  Whatever  is  the  explanation, 
there  is  in  the  Fiona  Macleod  stories  something  far  more 
profoundly  Celtic  than  merely  the  broken  English  of  the 
characters  of  another  Lowland  novelist,  William  Black. 

In  the  twenty  years  or  so  during  which  the  fame  of 
Trollope  was  at  its  height  the  novel  of  manners  was  pre- 
dominant. But  other  tastes  continued  to  exist,  and  the 
most  important  thing  now  to  notice  is  the  reappearance 
of  romance  as  the  vogue  of  the  story  of  manners  passed 
away.  William  Black  illustrates  one  phase  of  this  new 
romance,  and  other  aspects  are  to  be  seen  in  the  novels  of 
Richard  Blackmore,  of  Besant  and  Rice,  and,  above  all,  in 
those  of  R.  L.  Stevenson. 

Richard  Blackmore  (1825 — 1900)  deserves  to  be  remem- 
bered as  the  author  of  one  of  the  best  historical  romances  of 
the  last  half-century,  the  Devonshire  story  of  Lorna  Doone. 
Walter  Besant  (1836 — 1901)  and  James  Rice  (1843—1882) 
wrote  nothing  worthy  to  be  set  beside  Lorna  Doone.  But 
although  he  wrote  also  The  Maid  of  Sker  Blackmore  may 
be  called  a  man  of  one  book,  while  they  are  the  writers 
of  many  pleasant  stories.  To  something  of  the  merits  of 
Trollope,  though  on  a  lower  plane,  they  acid  something  of 
the  charm  of  romance  brought  into  relation  with  everyday 
life.  They  afford  a  remarkable  example  of  literary  partner- 
ship, for,  down  to  the  death  of  Rice,  their  novels  were 
joint  productions.  Their  partnership  resembles  the  relation 
between  two  much  greater  men,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher. 
Among  the  works  written  by  Besant  alone  All  Sorts  and 
Conditions  of  Men  deserves  mention,  for  it  turned  the 
attention  of  men  to  East  London,  as  perhaps  it  had  never 
been  turned  before,  and  the  People's  Palace  is  a  memorial 
of  its  influence. 

Contemporary  with  Besant  was  the  semi-mystical  writer 
Joseph  Henry  Shorthouse  (1834 — 1903),  a  Quaker  who 
changed  his  simple  faith  for  high  Anglicanism.  His  books 

w.  10 


146  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

give  the  impression  that  they  were  written  by  a  student 
in  a  college  or  cloister ;  but  they  were  the  work  of  an 
active  man  of  business  and  were  penned  in  the  midst  of 
bustling  modern  Birmingham.  Shorthouse  gave  up  his 
leisure  for  ten  years  to  John  Inglesant,  which  appeared  in 
1 88 1,  the  same  year  as  Stevenson's  Virginibus  Puerisque. 
But  except  for  studied  beauty  of  style  there  is  no  point  of 
contact  between  the  two  novelists. 

Samuel  Butler  (1835 — 1902)  was,  like  Shorthouse,  an 
isolated  figure.  His  two  best  known  works,  Erewhon  ;  or 
Over  the  Range  and  Erewhon  Revisited,  belong  to  the  class 
of  which  Gullivers  Travels  is  the  greatest  example  in 
English.  But  Butler  was  always  alone  in  thought,  and  the 
two  works  named  have  a  depth  of  foundation  which  no 
other  modern  architect  of  imaginary  societies  has  reached. 
Still  greater  is  The  Way  of  all  Flesh. 

George  Gissing  (1857 — 1903)  can  likewise  easily  be 
classed ;  but  he  too,  in  respect  of  what  he  has  done  best, 
stands  alone.  He  is  one  of  the  writers  who  have  chosen 
for  their  principal  theme  the  bare  and  ugly  life  to  which 
modern  industrialism  has  condemned  the  majority  in 
England.  Probably  Gissing  could  have  justified  his 
harshest  scenes  ;  but  the  work  of  Dickens,  of  whom  Gissing 
was  one  of  the  best  and  most  appreciative  critics,  suggests 
a  reason  why  the  justification  would  be  incomplete. 
Dickens  saw  the  joyousness  of  the  poor  as  well  as  their 
privations ;  Gissing  saw  only  their  privations.  But  the 
work  by  which  Gissing  deserves  to  live  in  literature  is 
something  wholly  different — the  exquisite  Private  Papers 
of  Henry  Ryecroft.  If  we  could  be  sure  that  reward  would 
always  be  commensurate  with  merit,  the  prophecy  might 
be  ventured  that  this  beautiful  piece  of  spiritual  auto- 
biography will  become  one  of  the  classics  of  the  English 
language, 


R.   L.   STEVENSON  147 

§  8.     R.  L.  Stevenson 

By  far  the  greatest  figure  amongst  these  later  romance 
writers  is  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  (1850 — 1894),  who, 
though  intended  by  nature  for  a  man  of  letters,  was 
born  into  a  family  of  engineers  and  destined  by  his 
people  for  their  profession.  His  whole  life  was  a  gallant 
struggle  against  ill-health.  The  fight  began  in  his  baby- 
hood, when  in  the  long  dreary  night,  between  the  paroxysms 
of  coughing,  his  nurse  would  hold  him  up  to  look  into  the 
dark  street  and  over  to  the  light  in  another  sick  chamber, 
and  he  and  she  would  wonder  if  there  was  another  little 
boy  aching  like  him,  and  wearily  waiting  there  for  morning. 
It  was  a  deep  grief  to  his  father  when  Louis  refused  to 
follow  the  family  profession  and  declared  himself  unable 
to  accept  the  family  religion.  The  breach  between  them 
widened  when  at  a  later  time  he  determined  to  marry 
Mrs  Osbourne,  an  American  lady  whose  acquaintance  he 
had  made  at  Fontainebleau.  He  cut  the  knot  of  difficulties 
by  sailing  for  San  Francisco  and  making  her  his  wife.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  she  was,  in  his  own  words,  "made  to  be  his 
mate."  But  to  win  her  Stevenson  had  to  struggle  through 
desperate  poverty,  ill-health  and  painful  domestic  quarrels. 
"  Here  is  a  good  heavy  cross  with  a  vengeance,"  he  writes 
with  reference  to  these  disputes,  "  and  all  rough  with  rusty 
nails  that  tear  your  fingers,  only  it  is  not  I  that  have  to 
carry  it  alone ;  I  hold  the  light  end,  but  the  heavy  burden 
falls  on  these  two."  Peace  was  restored  in  1880,  when  his 
father  allowed  him  an  income  of  ^250  and  admitted  that 
he  had  judged  his  son's  wife  too  harshly.  Stevenson,  as 
he  said  himself,  could  not  live  in  an  English  climate,  he 
could  only  die,  so  he  and  his  wife  set  up  their  home  in  the 
South  Sea  islands.  "  Keep  him  alive,"  the  doctor  said, 
"  till  he  is  forty,  and  then,  although  a  winged  bird,  he  may 
live  till  he  is  ninety."  He  died  at  forty-four.  He  had 

10 — 2 


148  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

lived  fourteen  years  in  the  South  Seas.  After  his  death 
the  Samoans  passed  in  procession  beside  his  bed  in  the 
great  hall  of  his  Vailima  home.  They  knelt  to  him,  their 
dead  chief  Tusitala,  and  kissed  his  hand. 

Stevenson  had  not  the  appearance  of  a  Briton,  and 
least  of  all  of  a  Scot.  In  his  Inland  Voyage  he  says,  "  I 
might  come  from  any  part  of  the  globe,  it  seems,  except 
from  where  I  do."  In  France  he  was  taken  for  a  French- 
man ;  he  has  recorded  his  imprisonment  as  a  German  spy ; 
and  at  a  later  date  he  writes,  "  I  have  found  out  what  is 
wrong  with  me — I  look  like  a  Pole."  Yet  in  the  Vailima 
Letters  which  he  wrote  home  from  the  South  Seas,  he 
laments  that  he  cannot  die  in  Scotland  and  be  "  buried  in 
the  hills  under  the  heather,  and  a  table  tombstone  like  the 
martyrs,  where  the  whaups  and  plovers  are  crying." 
He  made  voyages  with  his  father  round  the  lighthouses 
of  the  northern  seas,  and  in  his  boyhood  he  lay  amidst 
the  purple  heather  of  the  high  moorlands,  smelling  its 
blossoms,  and  listening  to  the  cry  of  the  whaup.  He  is 
at  his  best  when  he  writes  of  Scotch  things  and  Scotch 
people.  He  loved  the  land  of  his  birth.  "  Singular,"  he 
says,  "that  I  should  fulfil  the  Scot's  destiny  throughout, 
and  live  a  voluntary  exile,  and  have  my  head  filled  with  the 
blessed  beastly  place  all  the  time." 

The  first  book  which  brought  Stevenson  fame  was 
Treasure  Island.  In  it  he  used  his  knowledge  of  the  seas 
and  the  thrilling  possibilities  of  wrecks,  and  rock  caves, 
and  deserted  islands,  and  hidden  treasure.  He  raised  a 
boy's  book  into  a  story  captivating  to  all  ages.  The 
Strange  Case  of  Dr  Jekyll  and  Mr  Hyde  belongs  to 
another  order  of  writing.  Stevenson  dreamt  this  story 
of  a  dual  personality,  and  wrote  it  off  at  red  heat  as  it 
had  been  presented  to  him  in  his  sleep.  Kidnapped  deals 
with  Scotland  and  its  history  just  after  the  battle  of 
Culloden.  Though  it  cannot  touch  the  Waverley  Novels 


R.   L.   STEVENSON  149 

in  sweep  and  breadth  and  variety,  it  is  the  best  story 
of  the  kind  since  Scott.  Its  sequel  Catriona  falls  short 
of  Kidnapped^  but  it  has  a  feminine  element,  which  the 
latter  book  has  not.  The  Master  of  Ballantrae  comes 
between  these  two  in  quality  as  well  as  date.  St  Ives, 
a  tale  of  a  French  prisoner  of  war,  which  Stevenson 
left  unfinished,  was  completed  with  great  skill  by  Sir 
Arthur  Quiller  Couch.  Weir  of  Hermiston,  another  frag- 
ment, is  Stevenson's  greatest  work.  It  stands  gloomy  and 
grand,  an  unhewn  rock  with  infinite  possibilities.  The 
brutality  of  the  old  judge,  his  powerful  intellect  and  the 
cruelty  of  his  justice  combine  to  make  the  most  wonder- 
ful character  Stevenson  has  given  us.  We  link  this  work 
with  that  of  Emily  Bronte,  another  genius  who  died 
young.  Stevenson  had  an  astonishing  power  of  touching 
the  heartstrings  either  to  fear  or  sadness.  On  one  occasion 
his  sympathetic  account  of  the  hard  lot  of  the  legs  of  a 
chair,  for  ever  supporting  an  idle  seat,  reduced  a  listening 
boy  to  the  verge  of  tears.  He  made  himself  a  great 
master  of  prose  style.  His  touch  was  like  that  of  Midas, 
only  his  pen  turned  everything  into  beauty,  not  into 
gold.  He  loved  to  linger  over  words  and  phrases,  pick- 
ing and  choosing  from  all  the  wealth  at  his  command,  as 
a  beautiful  girl  dallies  with  her  trinket  case.  This  con- 
tinuous careful  search  for  the  best  word  was  the  outcome 
of  his  theory  of  the  art  of  writing: — "There  is,"  he  says, 
"  but  one  art — to  omit !  O  if  I  knew  how  to  omit  I  would 
ask  no  other  knowledge.  A  man  who  knows  how  to  omit 
would  make  an  Iliad  of  a  daily  paper." 

So  far  we  have  thought  of  Stevenson  only  as  a  writer 
of  novels ;  but  perhaps,  had  he  not  been  pressed  by  circum- 
stances to  make  money  by  his  works,  he  would  have  written 
more  poetry  than  the  exquisite  Child s  Garden  of  Verse  and 
its  companion  volume.  And  through  his  powerful  imagina- 
tion  and  his  wide  range  of  human  interests,  he  might,  had 


150  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

he  had  time  to  study  the  intricate  art  of  stagecraft,  have 
been  more  successful  as  a  playwright. 


§  9.    Stories  for  Children 

It  is  a  short  step  from  the  author  of  the  most  perfect 
modern  book  for  boys  to  the  delightful  story-tellers  who 
have  enriched  the  children  of  the  Victorian  era.  About 
nothing  else  is  it  so  safe  to  repeat  the  boast  of  one  of 
Homer's  heroes,  that  we  are  much  better  than  our  fathers. 
The  old  nursery  tales  remain,  it  is  true,  unsurpassed ;  but 
they  are  an  inheritance  of  the  race,  and  the  work  of  no  one 
knows  whom.  If  we  limit  ourselves  to  the  authors  of 
children's  books  who  can  be  named,  there  are  none  equal 
to  those  who  have  arisen  and  written  within  the  last  half 
century  or  so.  Three  may  be  selected  from  among  them 
for  special  honour  ;  and  first,  because  he  is  greatest,  Charles 
Lutwidge  Dodgson  (1832 — 1898),  better  known  as  Lewis 
Carroll,  the  creator  of  Alices  Adventures  in  Wonderland 
and  Through  the  Looking-Glass.  Dodgson  was  a  mathe- 
matician by  profession,  and  no  one  looking  at  the  learned 
old  man  sitting  at  the  high  table  of  Christ  Church,  Ox- 
ford, would  have  dreamed  of  his  extensive  acquaintance 
with  fairies;  yet  in  his  early  days  he  revealed  his  bent, 
making  shows  of  dolls  and  marionettes,  and  wandering 
around  in  apparently  close  intimacy  with  snails,  toads 
and  all  sorts  of  strange  pets.  There  is  a  pretty  story 
which  throws  a  light  upon  his  power  of  understanding  the 
unseen.  He  made  an  appointment  to  meet  a  lady  with 
a  great  gift  for  painting  fairies.  The  spot  selected  was 
a  crowded  public  place.  When  the  lady  arrived  there  she 
began  to  wonder  how  they  were  to  know  each  other  in  the 
multitude.  Presently  a  gentleman  entered  with  two  little 
girls  clinging  to  his  hands.  He  stooped  and  spoke  to  one, 
and  then  came  at  once  to  the  lady.  When  she  asked  how 


STORIES   FOR   CHILDREN  151 

he  knew  her,  Lewis  Carroll  replied, "  My  little  friend  found 
you.  I  told  her  I  had  come  to  meet  a  young  lady  who 
knew  fairies,  and  she  fixed  on  you  at  once.  But  /  knew 
you  before  she  spoke." 

Two  other  remarkable  makers  of  children's  books  are 
Margaret  Gatty  (1809 — 1873)  and  her  daughter  Juliana 
Horatia  Ewing  (1841 — 1885).  Mrs  Gatty  was  the  daughter 
of  the  Rev.  A.  J.  Scott,  Nelson's  chaplain  on  board  the 
Victory,  and  her  first  book  was  a  collection  of  remi- 
niscences of  her  father.  The  real  work  of  her  life 
however  was  her  children's  stories,  initiated  by  Fairy  God- 
mothers and  other  Tales.  They  were  written  partly  from 
the  suggestions  of  her  brilliant  little  girl  Juliana.  Aunt 
Judy  was  her  nursery  nickname,  and  it  gave  the  title 
to  Aunt  Judys  Tales  and  Aunt  Judys  Magazine.  Her 
daughter's  books  are  more  varied  and  finer.  In  Madame 
Liberality  we  see  a  portrait  of  Mrs  Ewing  herself.  As 
a  rule  the  little  stories  are  domestic,  and  appeal  to  girls 
rather  than  to  boys.  But  Mrs  Ewing  had  a  fairly  wide 
range,  and  her  We  and  the  World  is  an  admirable  book  for 
boys.  She  must  have  spun  the  adventure  in  it  out  of  her 
own  brain,  for  her  delicate  health  kept  her  out  of  reach  of 
any  exciting  occurrences.  The  Land  of  Lost  Toys,  Jacka- 
napes and  Jan  of  the  Windmill  are  pieces  of  genuine 
literature,  beautifully  written,  and  firmly  based  on  child- 
nature. 


152  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 


§  i.     The  Successors  of  Scott. 

Thomas  Love  Peacock,  1785—1866. 
Headlong  Hall,  1816. 
Melincourt,  1817. 
Nightmare  Abbey,  1818 
Maid  Marian,  1822. 
The  Misfortunes  of  Elphin,  1829. 
Crotchet  Castle,  1831. 
Gryll  Grange,  1860. 

IMITATORS  OF  SCOTT. 

William  Harrison  Ainsworth,  1805—1882. 

Rookwood,  1834. 

Jack  Sheppard,  1839. 

The  Tower  of  London,  1840. 

Old  St  PauVs,  1841. 

Windsor  Castle,  1843. 
John  Gibson  Lockhart,  1794 — 1854. 

Adam  Blair,  1822. 
John  Gait,  1779 — 1^39« 

Annals  of  the  Parish,  1821. 

The  Ayrshire  Legatees,  1821. 

The  Entail,  1823. 

IRISH  WRITERS. 

William  Carleton,  1794—1869. 

The  Pilgrimage  to  Lough  Derg,  1828. 

Traits  and  Stories  of  the  Irish  Peasantry,  1830 — 1833. 

Fardorougha  the  Miser,  1837—1838. 

Valentine  McClutchy,  1845. 

Parra  Sastha,  1845. 

The  Emigrants  of  Ahadarra,  1847. 

Willy  Reilly,  1855. 

Autobiography  (in  Life  by  D.  J.  O'Donoghue),  1896. 
John  Banim,  1798 — 1842. 

Tales  by  the  O'Hara  Family  (with  Michael  Banim),  1825—1827. 
Gerald  Griffin,  1803 — 1840. 

The  Collegians,  1829. 


NOVELS   AND   NOVELISTS  153 

William  Maginn,  1793 — 1842. 
Francis  Mahony,  1804 — 1866. 

Reliques  of  Father  Prout,  1834 — 1836. 
T.  Crofton  Croker,  1798—1854. 

Fairy  Legends  and  Traditions  of  the  South  of  Ireland,  1825. 
Samuel  Lover,  1797 — 1868. 

Handy  Andy,  1842. 
Charles  Lever,  1806 — 1872. 

Harry  Lorrequer,  1839. 

Charles  VMalley,  1841. 

Tom  Burke  of  Ours,  1844. 

Tony  Butler,  1865. 

Sir  Brook  Fossbrooke,  1866. 

NOVELISTS  OF  WAR  AND  OF  SEA. 

James  Grant,  1822 — 1887. 

The  Romance  of  War,  1845. 
Frederick  Marryat,  1792—1848. 

Peter  Simple,  1834! 

Jacob  Faithful,  1834. 

Japhet  in  Search  of  a  Father,  1836. 

Midshipman  Easy,  1836. 

Masterman  Ready,  1841. 

LYTTON  AND  DISRAELI. 

Edward  Bulwer  Lytton  (Lord  Lytton),  1803— i #73. 
Falkland,  1827. 
Pelham,  1828. 
Paul  Clifford,  1830. 
Eugene  Aram,  1832. 
The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii,  1834. 
Rienzi,  1835. 
Zanoni,  1842. 

The  Last  of  the  Barons,  1843. 
Harold,  1848. 
The  Caxtons,  1849. 
My  Novel,  1853. 

What  will  He  do  with  It?  1859. 
The  Coming  Race,  1871. 
Kenelm  Chillingly,  1873. 


154  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

Benjamin  Disraeli  (Earl  of  Beaconsfield),  1804 — 1881. 
Vivian  Grey,  1826 — 1827. 
The  Young  Duke,  1831. 
Contarini  Fleming,  1832. 
The  Wondrous  Tale  of  Alroy,  1833. 
Venetia,  1837. 
Henrietta  Temple,  1837. 
Coningsby,  1844. 
Sybil,  1845. 
Tancred,  1847. 
Lothair,  1870. 
Endymion,  1880. 

§  2.    Dickens. 

Charles  Dickens,  1812—1870. 
Sketches  by  Boz,  1836. 
The  Pickwick  Papers,  1836—1837. 
Oliver  Twist,  1837—1838. 
Nicholas  Nickleby,  1838—1839. 
The  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  1840—1841. 
Barnaby  Rudge,  1841. 
Martin  Chuzzlewit,  1843 — 1844. 
Dombey  and  Son,  1846 — 1848. 
David  Copperfield,  1849 — 1850. 
Bleak  House,  1852 — 1853. 
Hard  7*imes,  1854. 
Little  Dorrit,  1855—1857. 
A   Tale  of  Two  Cities,  1859. 
Our  Mutual  Friend,  1864—1865. 
The  Mystery  of  Edwin  Drood,  1870. 

§  3.     Thackeray. 

William  Makepeace  Thackeray,  1811—1863. 
The  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond,  1841. 
Barry  Lyndon,  1844. 
Vanity  Fair,  1847—1848. 

The  Book  of  Snobs,  1848  (in  Punch,  1846—1847). 
Pendennis,  1849—1850. 

The  English  Humourists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  1851. 
Esmond,  1852. 
The  New  comes,  1853—1855. 


NOVELS   AND   NOVELISTS  155 

The  Four  Georges,  1855 — 1866. 
The  Virginians,  1857 — 1859. 
The  Adventures  of  Philip,  1861. 
Denis  Duval,  1864. 
George  du  Maurier,  1834 — 1896. 
Trilby,  1894. 

§  4.     Women  Novelists. 

Charlotte  Bronte,  1816 — 1855. 

Jane  Eyre,  1847. 

Shirley,  1849. 

Villette,  1853. 

The  Professor,  1857. 
Emily  Bronte,  1818—1848. 

Wuthering  Heights,  1847. 
Elizabeth  Cleghorn  Gaskell,  1810—1865. 

Mary  Barton,  1848. 

Ruth,  1853. 

Cranford,  1853. 

North  and  South,  1855. 

Sylvids  Lovers,  1863, 

Cousin  Phillis,  1865. 

Wives  and  Daughters,  1866. 
George  Eliot,  1819—1880. 

Scenes  of  Clerical  Life,  1857. 

Adam  Bede,  1859. 

The  Mill  on  the  Floss,  1860. 

Silas  Marner,  1861. 

Romola,  1863. 

Felix  Holt,  1866. 

Middlemarch,  1871 — 1872. 

Daniel  Deronda,  1876. 
Mrs  Henry  Wood,  1814—1887. 

East  Lynne,  1861. 
Dinah  Maria  Craik,  1826—1887. 

John  Halifax,  Gentleman,  1856. 
Charlotte  Mary  Yonge,  1823 — 1901. 

The  Heir  of  Redclyffe,  1853. 
Margaret  Oliphant,  1828 — 1897. 

Margaret  Maitland,  1849. 

The  Chronicles  of  Carlingford,  1863 — 1876. 


156  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 


§  5.     Contemporaries  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray. 

Charles  Reade,  1814—1884. 

Peg  Woffington,  1853. 

Christie  Johns  tone,  1853. 

//  is  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend,  1856. 

The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  1861. 

Hard  Cash,  1863. 

Griffith  Gaunt,  1866. 

Put  Yourself  in  His  Place,  1870. 

A   Terrible  Temptation,  1871. 
Charles  Kingsley,  1819—1875. 

Yeast,  1848. 

The  Sainfs  Tragedy,  1848. 

Alton  Locke,  1850. 

Hypatia,  1853. 

Westward  Ho!  1855. 

The  Water  Babies,  1863. 

Hereward  the  Wake,  1866. 
Thomas  Hughes,  1822 — 1896. 

Tom  Browrts  School  Days,  1857. 
Wilkie  Collins,  1824—1889. 

Antonina,  1850. 

The  Woman  in  White,  1860. 

Armadale,  1866. 

The  Moonstone,  1868. 
Anthony  Trollope,  1815—1882. 

The  Macdermots  of  Bally cloran,  1 847. 

The  Warden,  1855. 

Bar  Chester  Towers,  1857. 

Doctor  Thome,  1858. 

The  Three  Clerks,  1858. 

Framley  Parsonage,  1861. 

The  Small  House  at  Allington,  1864. 

Can  You  Forgive  Her?  1864. 

The  Last  Chronicle  of  Bar  set,  1867. 

Phineas  Finn,  1869. 

Phineas  Redux,  1874. 

The  Prime  Minister,  1876. 

Autobiography,  1883. 


NOVELS   AND   NOVELISTS  157 

§  6.     George  Meredith. 

George  Meredith,  1828  —  1909. 

The  Shaving  of  Shagpat,  1855. 

The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Fever  el,  1859. 

Evan  Harrington,  1861. 

Emilia  in  England  (Sandra  Belloni\  1864. 

Rhoda  Fleming,  1865. 

Vittoria,  1866. 

The  Adventures  of  Harry  Richmond,  1871. 

Beauchamfis  Career  ;  1876. 

The  Egoist,  1879. 

The  Tragic  Comedians  ',  1880. 

Diana  of  the  Cros  sways,  1885. 

One  of  our  Conquerors,  1891. 

The  Amazing  Marriage,  1895. 


§  7.     <9M*r  Story-Tellers. 

George  MacDonald,  1824  —  1905. 

David  Elginbrod,  1863. 

^4/^  Forbes,  1865. 

Robert  Falconer,  1868. 

Malcolm,  1875. 

7%*  Marquis  of  Lossie,  1877. 

•5z>-  Gibbie,  1879. 
William  Sharp,  1855—1905. 

7%*  *SV#  £0&?r,  1895. 

Z$£  Dominion  of  Dreams,  1  899. 
William  Black,  1841—1898. 
Richard  Blackmore,  1825—1900. 

Lorna  Doone,  1869. 

The  Maid  of  Sker,  1872. 
Walter  Besant,  1836—1901. 

Ready-Money  Mortiboy  (with  James  Rice,  1843  —  1882),  1872. 

The  Golden  Butterfly  (with  Rice),  1876. 

All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men,  1882. 

The  Children  of  Gibeon,  1886. 
Joseph  Henry  Shorthouse,  1834  —  1903. 

John  Inglesant,  1881. 

Sir  Percival,  1886. 


158  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

Samuel  Butler,  1835—1902. 

Erewhon,  1872. 

Erewhon  Revisited,  1901. 

The  Way  of  All  Flesh,  1903. 
George  Gissing,  1857 — 1903. 

Demos,  1886. 

New  Grub  Street,  1891. 

The  Private  Papers  of  Henry  Ryecroft,  1903. 

§  8.    R.  L.  Stevenson. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  1850 — 1894. 
An  Inland  Voyage,  1878. 
Virginibus  Puerisque,  1881. 
Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books,  1882. 
New  Arabian  Nights,  1882. 
Treasure  Island,  1882. 

The  Strange  Case  of  Dr  Jekyll  and  Mr  Hyde,  1886. 
Kidnapped,  1886. 
The  Master  of  Ballantrae,  1889. 
The  Wrecker  (with  Mr  Lloyd  Osbourne),  1892. 
Catriona,  1893. 

Island  Nights'  Entertainments,  1893. 
The  Ebb  Tide  (with  Mr  Lloyd  Osbourne),  1894. 
Weir  of  Hermiston,  1 896. 
St  Ives,  1899. 
In  the  South  Seas,  1900. 

§  9.    Stories  for  Children. 

Charles  Lutwidge  Dodgson  (Lewis  Carroll),  1832 — 1898. 

Alices  Adventures  in  Wonderland,  1865. 

Through  the  Looking-Glass,  1871. 
Margaret  Gatty,  1809—1873. 

Fairy  Godmothers,  and  other  Tales,  1851. 

Aunt  Judy's  Tales,  1859. 
Juliana  Horatia  Ewing,  1841 — 1885. 

The  Land  of  Lost  Toys,  1869. 

Madame  Liberality,  1873. 

Jan  of  the  Windmill,  1876. 

We  and  the  World,  1877—1879. 

Jackanapes,  1879. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE    HISTORIANS 

§  I.     The  Revolution  in  the  Writing  of  History 

GREAT  as  is  the  difference  between  the  poetry  of  the 
school  of  Pope  and  that  of  the  poets  of  the  later  romance 
movement,  it  is  not  greater  than,  perhaps  it  is  hardly  as 
great  as,  that  between  the  historians  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  those  of  the  nineteenth.  In  history  however  the  transi- 
tion was  somewhat  later  in  showing  itself.  By  1760  there 
were  numerous  signs  of  change  in  poetry ;  but  at  that  date 
Hume's  History  was  still  unfinished,  and  Robertson  had 
written  only  one  of  the  three  works  which  made  his  reputa- 
tion. In  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  these 
two,  with  Gibbon,  were  still  among  the  authors  whom  "  no 
gentleman's  library  should  be  without."  Half  a  century 
later,  so  great  had  been  the  change  of  feeling  that  Huxley, 
in  one  of  the  best  books  ever  written  about  Hume,  passed 
over  the  famous  History  of  England  without  criticism.  It 
is  not  easy  to  say  what  caused  such  a  profound  change  of 
opinion,  but  one  or  two  suggestions  towards  an  answer  may 
be  made.  In  the  first  place,  the  idea  of  nationality  is  pro- 
minent in  the  work  of  the  nineteenth  century;  and  it  is 
interesting  to  notice  that  the  Decline  and  Fall  Q{  Gibbon,  the 
one  work  of  the  eighteenth  century  which  is  still  accepted, 
is  just  that  into  which,  from  the  nature  of  the  subject,  the 
question  of  nationality  scarcely  enters.  Had  his  book  dealt 


160  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 


Dire, it 


with  a  single  people  instead  of  the  whole  Roman  Empire,  it 
is  doubtful  whether  even  Gibbon's  thoroughness  would  have 
made  his  treatment  acceptable  to  the  student  of  the  present 
day.  The  French  Revolution  had  intervened,  with  its  asser- 
tion of  the  right  of  every  nation  to  be  itself,  and  mediaeval 
conceptions  of  a  universal  empire  were  antiquated. 

Again,  science  had  to  be  reckoned  with.  The  idea  of 
evolution  has  been  applied  to  history,  and  the  student  is 
almost  as  much  interested  in  what  a  nation  has  come  from  as 
in  what  it  has  now  become.  Hume  and  his  contemporaries 
did  not  care  to  study  the  rude  customs  or  institutions  of 
barbarians.  They  thought  that  only  civilised  men  were 
worthy  of  attention.  But  the  historical  evolutionist  is  as 
much  interested  in  crude  beginnings  as  the  biologist  is  in 
protoplasm. 

Connected  with  this  idea  is  the  profound  reverence  for 
fact  in  modern  history.  In  this  respect  history  has  been 
most  deeply  and  directly  indebted  to  science ;  and  it  is  here 
perhaps  that  we  find  the  real  dividing  line  between  the  new 
school  of  history  and  the  old.  There  can  be  no  dispute  as 
to  the  value  of  the  modern  method ;  but  it  is  worth  while  to 
notice,  because  it  is  frequently  forgotten,  that,  important  as 
the  spirit  of  research  is,  it  may  become  misleading.  To  its 
influence  must  be  ascribed  the  doctrine  that  history  is  a 
science  pure  and  simple.  And  yet  obviously  human  cha- 
racter is  the  raw  material  from  which  history  is  made  ;  and 
no  one  has  yet  formulated  a  science  of  human  character. 
Further,  the  modern  method  seems  to  have  begotten  a 
tendency  to  over-value  facts  as  facts.  The  modern  his- 
torian is  like  the  millionaire  who  is  worried  with  the  custody 
of  wealth  which  is  too  great  for  any  man  to  use.  The  one 
is  a  slave  to  his  gold,  the  other  to  his  facts.  The  task  of 
a  perfect  historian  would  be  to  re-think  the  thoughts  as  well 
as  to  record  the  actions  of  those  who  have  made  history. 
These  are  not  merely  soldiers  and  statesmen  but  all 


STUDENTS   OF   THE   ORIGINS  161 

mankind;  and  the  most  colossal  mass  of  "hard  facts" 
goes  only  a  very  little  way  towards  the  accomplishment  of 
the  task. 

§  2.     Students  of  the  Origins 

The  new  interest  in  the  beginnings  of  things  is  seen  in 
the  study  of  old  English  and  of  the  early  English  as  a 
people.  Among  the  pioneers  of  this  sort  of  learning  was 
Sharon  Turner  ( 1 768 —  1 847),  whose  History  of  the  A  nglo- 
Saxons  paved  the  way  for  subsequent  writers.  J.  M.  Kemble 
(1807 — 1857)  followed  him  with  The  Saxons  in  England. 
Sir  Francis  Palgrave  (1788 — 1861),  a  Deputy  Keeper  of 
the  Records,  was  another  pioneer,  whose  chief  work  was  his 
History  of  Normandy  and  of  England.  Freeman  declared 
of  him  that,  as  the  discoverer  of  the  fact  that  the  Roman 
Empire  did  not  end  in  476  A.D.,  he  deserved  a  place  among 
the  foremost  of  historians. 

In  the  study  of  language  and  literature  there  was  a 
movement  similar  to  that  which  has  been  noticed  in  history. 
For  the  eighteenth  century  English  literature  began  with 
The  Canterbury  Tales,  and  history,  it  may  almost  be  said, 
with  the  Norman  Conquest ;  but  the  men  of  the  nineteenth 
century  pushed  the  beginnings  back  by  centuries.  Kemble 
translated  Beowulf,  and  Joseph  Bosworth  wrote  a  grammar 
and  compiled  a  dictionary  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  language. 
Richard  Chenevix  Trench  (1807 — 1886)  investigated  the 
language  at  a  later  stage,  and  wrote  those  attractive  volumes, 
On  the  Study  of  Words  and  English  Past  and  Present, 
which  have  done  more  than  any  other  books  to  spread 
a  knowledge  of  the  history  of  English. 

Philology  however  is  a  science  which  was  "  made  in 
Germany."  It  was  Grimm  who  inspired  the  earlier  workers, 
and  in  later  days  the  chief  honours  fell  to  a  countryman  of 
Grimm,  Friedrich  Max  Miiller  (1823 — 1900)  who,  coming 
to  England  in  1846,  learned  to  speak  and  write  English 
w.  ii 


162  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

with  a  grace  and  elegance  never  surpassed  by  any  man  of 
foreign  birth. 

Max  Miiller  devoted  himself  to  the  science  of  compara- 
tive philology.  His  domain  was  the  whole  of  human  speech, 
but  especially  the  Aryan  family  of  languages,  and,  above 
all,  Sanskrit.  Besides  this  he  was  an  authority  upon  com- 
parative mythology  and  on  the  origin  and  growth  of 
religions.  So  wide  was  his  fame  that  when  the  people  of 
Japan  wanted  a  new  religion  they  sent  their  envoys  to 
Max  Muller ;  and  it  is  in  their  University  of  Tokio  that 
the  library  which  he  collected  has  found  its  final  home. 
He  had  a  remarkable  capacity  for  discovering  the  right 
thing  to  do  and  the  right  moment  to  do  it.  For  instance, 
when  war  broke  out  with  Russia  a  few  years  after  he 
had  settled  in  England,  he  had  ready  at  once  the  book 
entitled  Languages  of  the  Seat  of  War  in  the  East.  To 
the  end  this  power  never  failed  him.  Scholars  did  not 
understand  this  kind  of  tact,  and  they  doubted  the  depth  of 
a  learning  so  wide  and  varied,  and  the  sincerity  of  one  who 
was  gifted  with  the  power  of  charming  all  sorts  and  con- 
ditions of  men.  But  this  versatility  of  mind  has  not  put 
him  outside  the  group  of  scientific  historians,  if  a  form  of 
knowledge  so  varied  and  irreducible  to  law  as  the  history 
of  the  human  race  ever  can  be  studied  on  the  same 
principles  as  science. 

§  3.     Ancient  History 

The  department  of  ancient  history  was  the  first  to  feel 
deeply  the  influence  of  this  so-called  scientific  method.  In 
the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  chief  authority 
on  Greek  history  was  Mitford  ;  and  with  regard  to  Roman 
history  the  early  legends  were  still  largely  accepted  as 
records  of  literal  facts.  To  minds  in  this  state  the  work 
of  German  scholars  like  Niebuhr  came  as  a  revelation. 


ANCIENT   HISTORY  163 

Niebuhr's  merits  were  indeed  exaggerated.  Freeman  says 
that  his  followers  "avowedly  claimed  for  him  a  kind  of 
power  of  *  divination.' "  But  authority  of  this  sort  is  never 
lasting,  and  that  of  Niebuhr  was  undermined,  in  England, 
by  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis's  Inquiry  on  the  Credibility 
of  Early  Roman  History. 

The  three  men  by  whom,  or  under  whose  influence,  the 
history  of  Greece  and  Rome  was  rewritten  were  Thomas 
Arnold  (1795 — 1842),  Connop  Thirlwall  (1797 — 1875)  and 
George  Grote  (1794 — 1871).  It  is  however  as  head  of 
Rugby  School  that  Arnold  will  be  best  remembered. 
When  he  went  from  the  quiet  rectory  of  Laleham  to  Rugby, 
it  ranked  only  among  the  second-class  public  schools  of 
England,  and  not  particularly  high  among  these.  When 
he  died,  it  stood  first  of  all.  What  he  set  himself  to  accom- 
plish was  not  merely  to  give  his  pupils  learning,  but  to 
mould  their  characters  and  to  give  them  his  own  high 
conception  of  public  and  private  duty.  Arnold  still  lives 
also  as  a  man  of  letters  by  his  History  of  Rome  ;  for,  though 
much  of  his  work  has  been  superseded  by  the  later  re- 
searches of  the  German  Mommsen,  not  to  speak  of  lesser 
scholars,  his  histories  of  campaigns  are  admitted  by  military 
men  to  show  the  insight  of  a  soldier,  and  they  have  a 
literary  charm  rarely  found  in  the  writing  of  men  of  action. 
Yet  style  was  never  Arnold's  primary  interest.  His  first 
consideration  in  writing  was  the  thing  to  be  said,  and  never 
the  manner  of  saying  it.  His  early  writings  are  therefore 
sometimes  clumsy  and  crude ;  but  they  have  the  power  to 
convince  which  belongs  to  a  man  who  knows  his  subject. 
His  great  object  was  to  teach  principles.  He  would  not 
have  thought  it  worth  while  to  re-tell  the  story  of  ancient 
Rome  if  he  had  not  believed  that  it  was  a  practical  subject 
by  which  he  might  teach  political  principles  to  English 
statesmen  and  citizens. 

The  other  two  historians,  Thirlwall  and  Grote,  had  been 

II 2 


164  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

friends  and  schoolfellows,  and  now  they  rest  in  the  same 
grave  in  Westminster  Abbey ;  but,  strangely  enough,  they 
knew  nothing  of  one  another's  researches  until  the  result 
began  to  appear  in  print.  Of  the  two,  Thirlwall  was  the 
profounder  scholar  ;  but  he  was  unfortunate  in  the  plan  of 
his  history,  which  was  originally  written  for  Lardners 
Cyclopaedia  and  shows  a  want  of  proportion  owing  to  the 
subsequent  change  of  design. 

Grote  devoted  far  more  time  to  Greek  history  than  Thirl- 
wall, and  therefore,  though  the  latter  is  the  finer  writer  and 
the  more  impartial  judge,  the  former,  as  the  more  thorough 
worker,  on  the  whole  surpassed  his  rival.  Grote  was  stirred 
up  to  write  his  History  by  the  extreme  Toryism  shown  by 
Mitford  in  his  History  of  Greece.  In  his  desire  to  defend 
democracy  he  swung  too  far  in  the  opposite  direction. 
He  is  blind  to  the  most  obvious  faults  in  the  government 
of  democratic  Athens,  and  quite  forgets  that  a  democracy 
resting  on  slavery  is  not,  in  the  modern  sense,  a  democracy 
at  all.  It  is  therefore  unsafe  to  assume,  as  he  does,  that  a 
lesson  may  be  drawn  directly  from  ancient  democracy  for 
the  use  of  modern  democracy. 

There  is  one  other  historian  of  the  Greeks  who  deserves 
more  than  a  passing  mention.  This  is  George  Finlay 
(1799 — 1875)  whom  Freeman  speaks  of  as  "the  most 
truly  original  historian  of  our  time  and  language  " ;  while 
J.  S.  Mill  said  that  a  page  of  him  was  worth  a  chapter 
of  Gibbon.  Finlay  wrote  The  History  of  Greece  from  its 
Conquest  by  the  Romans  to  the  Present  Time,  that  is,  from 
146  B.C.  to  1864  A.D.  It  was  not  published  until  after  his 
death.  Finlay  was  not  a  great  writer,  nor  is  his  History 
a  work  of  art,  but  he  was  an  enthusiast  for  his  subject.  He 
took  part  in  the  Greek  war  of  independence,  and  for  two 
months  was  in  close  association  with  Byron,  leaving  Mis- 
solonghi  just  nine  days  before  the  poet's  death.  After  the 
end  of  the  war  he  bought  an  estate,  and  settled  in  Greece. 


ANCIENT   HISTORY  165 

Thenceforward  till  his  death  the  greater  part  of  his  life 
was  spent  among  the  people  whose  cause  he  had  espoused 
and  whose  history  he  was  studying. 

Finlay  traced  one  line  of  connexion  between  the 
ancient  and  modern  worlds,  and  Henry  Hart  Milman 
(1791 — 1868)  made  it  his  business  in  later  life  to  trace 
another.  He  was  at  one  time  professor  of  poetry  at 
Oxford,  and  up  to  1829,  when  his  History  of  the  Jews 
appeared,  his  name  had  only  been  associated  with  poetry 
and  plays.  R.  Garnett  speaks  of  his  history  as  "  epoch- 
making."  It  certainly  was  startling  to  orthodox  England, 
so  startling  that  Milman's  publisher  found  himself  obliged 
to  stop  the  series  in  which  the  History  was  appearing. 
Milman  was  accused  of  want  of  reverence  for  the  scrip- 
tures, because  he  referred  to  Abraham  as  a  sheik,  and 
ventured  to  criticise  the  miracles.  His  promotion  was 
stopped  for  a  time  by  the  outcry;  but  he  was  a  man  of 
rare  courage  and  intellectual  honesty,  whom  no  ill  treat- 
ment could  induce  to  recant.  The  idea  of  treating  the 
Jews  with  the  same  impartial  investigation  that  we  give 
to  the  annals  of  any  other  nation  has  now  become  so 
familiar  to  us  that  it  is  hard  to  appreciate  what  Milman 
did  for  freedom  of  thought.  His  later  book,  The  His- 
tory of  Latin  Christianity -,  including  that  of  the  Popes 
to  Nicholas  V,  is  his  greatest  and  most  ambitious  work. 
He  trained  himself  for  it  by  his  studies  in  Gibbon,  whose 
history  he  edited  and  whose  life  he  wrote.  The  History 
of  Latin  Christianity  runs  parallel  with  The  Decline  and 
Fall.  Both  works  treat  of  the  same  period  ;  and  yet 
they  are  so  widely  different  that,  had  Milman  desired  to 
emphasise  the  fact  that  he  was  not  rewriting  Gibbon,  he 
might  have  done  so  by  the  use  of  the  phrase  "rise  and 
progress."  Gibbon  writes  of  secular  Rome,  and  tries  to 
trace  the  causes  of  the  decay  of  the  worldly  empire  of 
the  Caesars ;  Milman  writes  of  Rome  ecclesiastical  and 


1 66  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

religious,  and  tries  to  trace  the  rise  of  the  spiritual  empire 
of  the  Popes. 

The  immense  superiority  of  these  historians  of  the 
ancient  world  to  their  predecessors  naturally  enough 
suggests  the  idea  that  they  wrote  history  on  some  new 
method.  But  in  reality  the  sole  important  difference  is 
that  they  were  more  thorough  and  more  conscientious 
than  those  whom  they  superseded. 


§  4.     Hallam  and  Macaulay 

It  is  however  in  the  work  of  Henry  Hallam  (1777 — 
1859)  that  we  find  the  most  direct  link  between  the 
historical  work  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries. 
In  A  View  of  the  State  of  Europe  during  the  Middle 
Ages  and  The  Constitutional  History  of  England,  he 
showed  that  readiness  to  undertake  vast  subjects  which 
belongs  to  the  earlier  time  ;  but  with  it  he  combined 
the  power  of  research  and  the  appreciation  of  old  docu- 
ments which  characterise  a  more  recent  period.  Time 
has  considerably  dimmed  the  reputation  of  the  "judicious 
Hallam."  The  coldness  and  want  of  sympathy  to  which 
he  owed  this  epithet  do  not  conduce  to  human  interest; 
and  it  has  been  discovered  that  his  impartiality  is  marred 
and  limited  by  the  presence  of  certain  preconceptions. 
It  is  difficult  to  understand  that  the  man  who  wrote  as 
Hallam  wrote  lived  among  men  and  women  and  was 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  talkers  in  the  famous  society 
which  gathered  at  Holland  House;  while  the  reason  is 
evident  why  Macaulay  described  him  as  "a  judge,  but  a 
hanging  judge." 

The  historians  who  first  exhibit  the  characteristics  of 
the  nineteenth  century  fully  developed  and  on  the  great 
scale  are  Carlyle  and  Macaulay.  But  though  they  share 
the  characteristics  of  their  time  they  are  widely  different 
one  from  the  other.  "  To  reach  the  English  intellect,"  says 


HALLAM    AND    MACAULAY  167 

Taine,  "  a  Frenchman  must  make  two  voyages.  When  he 
has  crossed  the  first  interval,  which  is  wide,  he  comes  upon 
Macaulay.  Let  him  re-embark ;  but  he  must  accomplish 
a  second  passage,  just  as  long,  to  arrive  at  Carlyle  for 
instance, — a  mind  fundamentally  Germanic,  on  the  genuine 
English  soil."  Taine  has  not  exaggerated  the  difference 
between  these  two  men,  or  their  importance.  By  reason 
of  the  wide  influence  Carlyle  has  exercised  and  exercises 
over  all  forms  of  thought,  he  has  been  treated  in  the  first 
chapter.  After  him  the  highest  place  among  the  writers  of 
history  in  the  nineteenth  century  may  be  given  to  Thomas 
Babington  Macaulay  (1800 — 1859).  He  has  been  pro- 
nounced unsound  and  a  prejudiced  partisan ;  but  Lord 
Acton,  a  very  competent  critic,  speaks  in  terms  of  extra- 
ordinary warmth  about  his  powers  as  a  historian.  A  master 
in  the  art  of  writing  pure  vigorous  English,  Macaulay  has 
never  been  found  wanting  in  interest.  His  Essays  have, 
probably  more  than  any  other  book,  brought  multitudes 
to  find  entertainment  in  history. 

The  historian  was  the  son  of  Zachary  Macaulay,  who 
surrendered  the  chance  of  opulence  in  order  to  devote 
himself  to  the  cause  of  the  West  Indian  slaves.  In  such 
a  home  Macaulay  early  learned  to  work  for  great  causes 
and  to  be  ready  to  sacrifice  himself  for  the  public  good. 
He  entered  Cambridge  a  Tory,  but  was  converted  to 
Radicalism  by  Charles  Austin,  "the  only  man  who  ever 
dominated  Macaulay."  Ultimately  he  joined  the  Whigs 
and  was  the  chief  literary  exponent  of  their  principles. 
Besides  Austin,  John  Moultrie,  W.  M.  Praed,  Henry  Nelson 
Coleridge  and  Derwent  Coleridge  were  among  the  brilliant 
group  of  Cambridge  undergraduates  in  Macaulay's  time. 
At  college  he  was  twice  the  winner  of  the  prize  for  an 
English  poem,  and  there  too  he  began  to  write  for  Knight's 
Quarterly  Magazine.  As  a  student  his  passion  for  reading 
was  notorious.  It  was  in  a  sense  a  snare  to  him,  and  he 


168  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 


;l-»i  nrr 


indulged  it  to  an  extent  which,  in  view  of  his  astonishing 
memory,  had  not  much  meaning.  He  said  that  \iParadise 
Lost  were  destroyed  he  could  repeat  it  from  memory ;  yet 
he  went  on  reading  Paradise  Lost.  By  this  persistent 
re-reading  of  old  favourites  he  may  have  become  what 
he  was,  slow  to  admit  a  new  author  into  favour,  or  to  do 
justice  to  a  fresh  writer  who  broke  away  from  convention. 
He  thought  less  of  Carlyle  than  of  Addison ;  and  the  great 
wave  of  German  influence  hardly  touched  him. 

It  was  shortly  after  he  left  college  that  Macaulay 
secured  by  his  essay  on  Milton  a  connexion  with  the 
Edinburgh  Review  and  won  for  himself  a  fame  almost  as 
dazzling  and  sudden  as  that  which  Childe  Harold  had 
gained  for  Byron.  The  famous  Critical  and  Historical 
Essays  were  written  for  this  periodical.  In  1830  Macaulay 
entered  parliament  as  a  member  for  Calne.  Four  years 
later  he  accepted  a  seat  on  the  supreme  council  for  India. 
He  spent  four  interesting  years  there,  working  strenuously 
to  draft  the  Indian  Penal  Code,  which,  his  biographer 
says,  the  "  younger  civilians  now  carry  in  their  saddle  bags 
and  the  older  in  their  heads."  When  he  returned  to  Eng- 
land he  had  saved  sufficient  money  to  enable  him  to  devote 
himself  to  literature.  He  appeared  again  in  parliament  and 
became  secretary  at  war.  But  he  grudged  the  long  hours 
passed  in  the  House,  and  so,  after  his  defeat  at  the  election 
for  Edinburgh  in  1847,  ne  resigned  his  office.  Although 
he  again  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons  from  1852  till  1856, 
he  no  longer  took  any  large  part  in  political  life.  In  the 
words  of  the  fine  lines  he  wrote  when  he  was  beaten 
at  Edinburgh,  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  Muse  of  litera- 
ture, the  "  glorious  Lady  with  the  eyes  of  light,"  who  had 
cheered  the  exile  of  Hyde,  the  captivity  of  Raleigh  and  the 
disgrace  of  Bacon.  Two  years  before  his  death  Macaulay 
was  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Baron  Macaulay  of  Rothley. 

In  spirit  and  aim  Macaulay  was  on  one  side  akin  to 


FROUDE  169 

the  historians  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  on  the  other 
to  his  contemporaries  and  successors  of  the  nineteenth. 
Although  his  first  venture  in  authorship  took  the  form 
of  criticisms  and  reviews,  his  work  is  mainly  historical. 
He  says  himself,  "  I  am  nothing  if  not  historical,"  and 
the  truth  of  this  judgment  is  impressed  upon  the  reader 
at  every  page.  He  was  what  Lord  Houghton  very  hap- 
pily calls  him,  "  a  great  historical  orator  and  oratorical 
historian";  his  essays  might  be  very  easily  delivered  as 
speeches,  and  his  speeches  read  as  essays.  In  his  pro- 
found respect  for  facts  he  is  in  sympathy  with  the  new 
school  of  history,  but  his  wonderful  skill  in  dressing  them 
up,  and  making  them  no  longer  "  hard,"  allies  him  with  the 
older  writers.  He  was  a  master  of  narrative  and  of  the  short 
crisp  sentence  so  easily  understood.  He  had  at  his  com- 
mand an  enormous  mass  of  details,  and  nothing  was  too 
trivial  for  him  to  use  in  order  to  make  his  picture  more 
vivid.  It  is  this  that  has  made  his  History  as  interesting 
as  a  novel,  and  five  times  as  long  as  it  ought  to  be. 

§  5.     Froude 

The  conception  that  a  new  method  of  writing  history 
had  been  discovered,  which  is  the  product  of  a  somewhat 
later  time,  gives  rise  to  a  conflict  between  two  great  schools, 
the  literary  and  the  so-called  scientific.  James  Anthony 
Froude  (1818 — 1894)  is,  after  Carlyle  and  Macaulay,  the 
best  example  of  the  literary  school,  while  the  scientific 
group  is  represented  by  William  Stubbs  (1825 — 1901), 
Edward  Augustus  Freeman  (1823 — 1892),  Samuel  Rawson 
Gardiner  (1829 — 1902),  Mandell  Creighton  (1843 — 1901), 
and,  partially,  by  John  Richard  Green  (1837 — J883). 

Froude,  who  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman,  started  life  in 
a  home  that  was  too  bigoted  to  admit  into  its  library  a 
copy  of  The  Pilgrim's  Progress.  At  Oxford,  finding  his 


170  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

brother  Hurrell  Froude  hotly  engaged  in  doing  battle 
for  the  Tractarians,  he  too  naturally  fell  under  their  in- 
fluence, and  was  enlisted  by  Newman  to  write  for  The 
Lives  of  the  Saints.  When  he  was  twenty-seven  he  was 
ordained  deacon  ;  but  his  orthodoxy  gave  way  before  the 
time  came  for  him  to  be  a  priest,  and,  as  soon  as  the  law 
permitted  him,  he  cast  off  his  clerical  profession.  His 
Nemesis  of  Faith,  a  sort  of  spiritual  autobiography,  came 
out  while  he  was  in  orders.  It  caused  great  excitement. 
The  senior  tutor  of  Exeter  College  burned  his  copy  (a 
borrowed  one)  in  the  hall  of  the  College,  and  Froude  had 
to  resign  his  fellowship.  He  was  even  compelled  to  sell 
his  books,  for  his  father  cut  off  the  allowance  of  his 
heterodox  son.  Such  was  the  penalty  to  be  paid  at  that 
time  for  freedom  of  thought. 

In  the  midst  of  these  disasters  Froude  came  across 
Carlyle,  who  speedily  became  the  chief  influence  in  his  life. 
"  If  I  wrote  anything,"  he  says,  "  I  fancied  myself  writing  it 
to  him,  reflecting  at  each  word  what  he  would  think  of  it 
as  a  check  on  affectations."  The  first  important  work 
was  begun  at  Carlyle's  suggestion,  and  written  in  a  great 
measure  on  Carlyle's  conception  of  what  history  ought  to 
be.  In  The  History  of  England  from  the  Fall  of  Wolsey  to 
the  Defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada  Froude  set  himself  the 
task  of  telling  the  story  of  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
especially  in  England,  and  of  showing  by  what  means 
Protestantism  finally  became  established  as  a  ruling  force 
over  a  great  part  of  Europe.  This  was  the  reason  why 
he  stopped  at  1588.  He  meant  in  his  original  plan  to 
carry  his  history  down  to  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  but  he 
became  convinced  that  the  defeat  of  the  Armada  was  the 
real  Protestant  triumph.  In  this  work  Froude  displays  one 
of  his  most  notable  gifts,  the  power  of  drawing  character. 
It  has  been  said  that  he  has  whitewashed  Henry  VIII  and 
changed  our  conception  of  the  whole  Tudor  family.  It  is 


FROUDE  171 

quite  certain  that,  though  we  may  not  fully  accept  his  view 
of  that  family,  he  has  permanently  raised  its  reputation. 

Several  of  Froude's  minor  works  may  be  regarded  as 
appendages  to  his  History — for  example,  The  Divorce  of 
Catharine  of  Aragon,  The  Spanish  Story  of  the  Armada 
and  English  Seamen  in  the  Sixteenth  Century,  but  there 
are  others  which  demand  separate  notice,  because  they  are 
inspired  by  a  new  conception,  the  conception  of  imperial- 
ism. Froude  visited  the  colonies,  and  from  his  visits  came 
Oceana,  Lectures  on  South  Africa  and  The  English  in  the 
West  Indies.  The  English  in  Ireland  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  though  it  tells  a  different  tale,  is  still  animated 
by  this  imperialistic  spirit.  This  idea,  it  is  true,  is  present 
in  the  History,  and  was  certainly  strengthened  in  Froude's 
mind  by  his  researches  in  writing  that  book  ;  but  that  work 
is  nevertheless  mainly  a  history  of  the  rise  of  Protestantism. 
The  second  group  of  books,  on  the  other  hand,  are  directly 
inspired  by  the  idea  of  imperialism,  and  probably  no  other 
writer  except  Seeley  has  done  more  than  Froude  to  foster 
this  feeling  among  Englishmen. 

An  important  work  still  to  be  noticed  is  his  Life  of 
Carlyle.  In  this  Froude  had  a  magnificent  subject,  and  he 
has  left  behind  one  of  the  most  fascinating  of  biographies. 
It  is  true  he  colours  his  characters  too  deeply  and  is 
inaccurate.  Professor  Norton  calls  The  Life  of  Carlyle 
"  a  story  founded  on  fact,"  and  Mr  David  Wilson  complains 
that  in  Froude's  work  there  are  as  many  errors  as  pages. 
Froude's  inaccuracies  and  misstatements  cannot  be  de- 
fended ;  but  it  is  unfair  to  assert  that  he  did  not  seek  for 
the  truth.  He  has  received  less  than  his  due  of  credit  for 
the  original  research  he  did  for  his  History.  He  was  the  first 
Englishman  to  examine  the  great  collection  of  documents 
at  Simancas,  and  he  laboured  hard  also  at  the  documents 
in  the  Record  Office.  In  Hatfield  House,  the  residence  of 
the  Cecils,  he  found  the  sand  which  had  been  used  to  dry 


VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

some  manuscripts  written  centuries  before  glistening  on 
the  ink.  This  proved  that  his  eye  was  the  first  to  read 
the  pages.  Froude,  by  his  conscientious  research,  and  his 
unique  power  of  presenting  history  to  the  reader  in  an 
interesting  and  beautiful  form,  has  rendered  a  great  service 
to  students,  a  service  which  ought  to  be  more  generously 
estimated  against  his  errors. 

§  6.     The  Oxford  Group 

To  pass  from  the  works  of  Froude  to  those  of  Freeman 
and  Stubbs  is  to  go  into  the  new  atmosphere  of  the  Oxford 
school  of  historians,  to  which  Froude,  though  he  was  an 
Oxford  man,  did  not  belong.  Froude  read  widely  for  his 
work,  but  when  he  wrote  he  made  few  references.  The 
men  of  the  Oxford  school  on  the  other  hand  made  constant 
reference  to  the  original  authorities  a  matter  of  conscience 
and  duty.  By  this  scrupulous  zeal  they  gained  for  them- 
selves a  reputation  for  accuracy  which  caused  them  to  be 
regarded  by  their  admiring  contemporaries  as  the  superiors 
of  all  their  predecessors.  Now  however  men  are  more  alive 
to  their  limitations  and  defects.  Thus  Freeman,  owing  to 
his  aversion  to  using  the  British  Museum  and  other  great 
public  libraries  and  his  objection  to  authorities  not  in  print, 
evidently  cannot  be  said  to  have  made  use  of  all  available 
documents.  And,  as  will  be  seen  later,  his  capricious 
temperament  marred  his  judgment  and  drove  him  into 
assumptions  which  were  not  correct. 

Until  he  was  appointed  regius  professor  of  history  at 
Oxford,  Freeman  spent  most  of  his  life  in  the  country, 
whence  he  sent  out  a  stream  of  articles  chiefly  historical, 
but  sometimes  dealing  with  such  subjects  as  architec- 
ture and  geography  as  they  bore  upon  his  special  study. 
He  published  The  History  and  Conquest  of  the  Saracens, 
he  began  and  left  unfinished  The  History  of  Federal 
Government.  But  the  great  work  of  his  life  was  The 


THE   OXFORD   GROUP  173 

History  of  the  Norman  Conquest  and  its  sequel  The  Reign 
of  William  Rufus.  In  all  his  books  he  is  prone  to  fall 
into  certain  characteristic  mistakes.  In  his  school  days 
he  learned  from  Arnold  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  history. 
The  conception  was  then  novel,  it  was  true  to  a  certain 
extent,  and  it  tended  to  demolish  the  old  classifications  of 
history  into  ancient  and  modern,  secular  and  sacred.  But 
Freeman  insisted  upon  pushing  the  idea  to  the  extreme. 
He  underrated  the  importance  of  the  deep  lines  of  division 
which  exist,  though  they  do  not  completely  break  the 
connexion  between  the  distant  past  and  the  present.  There 
are,  it  is  true,  between  the  ancient  world  and  the  modern, 
many  lines  of  connexion — through  the  law  of  Rome, 
through  the  literature  and  philosophy  of  Greece, — but  it  is 
none  the  less  true  that  there  is  a  wide  difference  between 
the  ancient  world  and  the  modern.  Freeman  went  so  far 
as  to  oppose  the  use  of  modern  history  as  a  distinct  subject 
of  academic  education,  and  argued  against  the  proposal  to 
establish  a  school  of  modern  history  in  Oxford. 

A  similar  prejudice  is  seen  in  Freeman's  exaltation  of 
the  Teutons,  and  in  his  account  of  the  conquest  of  the 
Celts.  This  account  is  almost  pure  theory,  and  further,  it 
is  singularly  unconvincing  theory.  There  is  every  reason, 
we  are  told,  to  believe  that  the  Celtic  inhabitants  over  a 
great  part  of  England  had  been  extirpated.  Yet  it  is  added 
that  "  the  women  would  doubtless  be  largely  spared,"  and 
that  the  men  would  have  the  alternatives  of  death,  emigra- 
tion or  slavery.  But  if  the  women  were  spared  there  was 
no  approach  to  extermination,  even  supposing  that  all  the 
men  chose  the  alternatives  of  death  or  emigration.  Nor  is 
Freeman's  appeal  to  language  more  convincing.  Nearly  all 
the  Welsh  words  which  have  survived  in  English  express, 
he  says,  "  some  small  domestic  matter,  such  as  women 
and  slaves  would  be  concerned  with."  And  he  draws  the 
conclusion  that  in  Britain,  and,  he  admits,  in  Britain  alone, 


174  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

"  the  intruding  nation  altogether  supplanted  the  elder 
nation."  But  events  which  are  unexampled  ought  to  be 
established  by  the  most  rigorous  evidence ;  and  what 
Freeman  adduces  can  hardly  be  called  evidence  at  all. 

The  two  ambitions  of  Freeman  were  to  be  a  professor 
of  history  at  Oxford,  and  to  become  a  member  of  parlia- 
ment. Towards  the  end  of  his  life,  when  he  had  become 
too  weary  to  care  for  honours,  the  chance  of  entering 
parliament  was  offered  to  him,  but  he  declined  it.  He 
realised  his  other  ambition,  and  became  professor  of  history 
at  Oxford.  It  is  very  rare  for  a  professor  at  Oxford  or 
Cambridge  to  be  able  to  gather  an  audience,  and  few  came 
to  listen  to  Freeman's  lectures.  He  was  much  disappointed, 
and  pathetically  wrote  that  he  had  tried  every  kind  of 
lecture  he  could  think  of  and  had  put  his  best  strength  into 
all,  and  nobody  came.  Probably  he  was  himself  to  blame, 
for  his  writings  do  not  show  the  qualities  which  make  an 
attractive  speaker.  He  never  learned  the  art  of  omission ; 
and  the  clumsy  style  in  his  ponderous  books,  with  their 
dubious  theories  and  unconvincing  arguments,  makes  it 
extremely  doubtful  whether  they  will  long  continue  to  be 
read. 

With  the  name  of  Freeman  there  is  usually  linked  that 
of  his  friend  William  Stubbs.  The  two  names  naturally 
come  together.  The  men  were  regarded  as  the  most 
learned  historians  of  their  time,  their  aims  and  methods 
were  alike,  and  their  mutual  admiration  for  each  other 
was  sometimes  as  diverting  as  it  was  profound.  Thorold 
Rogers  was  awake  to  the  amusing  aspect  of  it,  and  wrote 
the  well-known  lines  : 

"See,  ladling  butter  from  alternate  tubs, 
Stubbs  butters  Freeman,  Freeman  butters  Stubbs." 

Stubbs  was  not  only  younger  in  years  than  his  friend, 
but  his  work  on  the  whole  was  later.  It  was  both  of  a 
brighter  character  than  Freeman's  and  more  deeply  learned. 


THE   OXFORD   GROUP  175 

Stubbs  had  an  incisive  manner  of  describing  a  character, 
and  there  is  much  lively  and  excellent  writing  in  the  intro- 
ductions to  the  volumes  of  the  Rolls  series  which  he 
edited.  This  editorial  work  was  executed  in  such  a 
masterly  way  as  to  give  the  author  a  reputation  so  high 
that  he  was  offered  the  Oxford  professorship  of  history, 
for  which  he  was  not  even  a  candidate.  He  held  this 
post  for  eighteen  years,  when  he  was  made  Bishop  of 
Chester.  Two  years  later  he  was  translated  to  Oxford, 
where  the  rest  of  his  life  was  occupied  in  the  administra- 
tion of  his  diocese. 

The  selection  of  Stubbs  to  fill  the  chair  of  history  in 
Oxford  was  fortunate,  for  it  was  during  the  years  in  which 
he  held  this  position  that  he  did  his  literary  work.  To 
that  period  belong  Select  Charters,  The  Constitutional  His- 
tory of  England,  The  Early  Plantagenets  and  Lectures  on 
the  Study  of  Medieval  and  Modern  History,  though  he 
had  become  a  bishop  before  the  last  was  published. 

The  great  interest  in  history  for  Stubbs  lay  on  its 
ecclesiastical  and  constitutional  sides,  and  his  best  known 
work  is  the  Constitutional  History.  This  and  the  his- 
tories on  the  same  lines  of  Hallam  and  of  May  form  a 
series  of  three  books  which  together  cover  the  whole  course 
of  English  constitutional  history  from  the  beginning  down 
to  a  time  within  living  memory.  Stubbs  undertook  the 
earliest  period,  tracing  the  constitutional  history  of  Eng- 
land "  in  its  origin  and  development." 

The  whole  work  of  Stubbs  is  inspired  with  the  convic- 
tion that  the  beginning  is  more  than  half  the  whole.  He 
shares  in  a  more  moderate  form  the  belief  of  Freeman  that 
in  substance  almost  the  whole  of  our  English  laws  were  in 
use  in  Saxon  times,  and  that  recent  changes  are  merely 
changes  in  detail.  He  did  most  important  work,  discovering 
much  that  was  unknown,  and  putting  much  that  was  known 
in  its  proper  place. 


1 76  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

John  Richard  Green  combined  the  brilliant  writing  of 
Macaulay  with  the  method  of  his  fellow-historians  of  the 
Oxford  school.  He  started  life  as  a  curate  in  East  London, 
where  by  his  untiring  zeal  and  hard  work  he  sowed  the 
seeds  of  the  disease  which  doomed  him  to  an  early  death. 
It  was  when  forced  by  ill-health  to  retire  from  clerical  life 
that  he  found  leisure  for  his  historical  work.  Like  R.  L. 
Stevenson  he  toiled  bravely  in  face  of  death,  working  as 
best  he  could  at  health  resorts,  to  which  he  had  been  driven 
by  disease  ;  like  Stevenson  too  he  was  a  brilliant  talker  and 
a  fascinating  letter-writer ;  and  finally,  like  Stevenson  he 
wrote  his  own  epitaph — "he  died  learning." 

A  Short  History  of  the  English  People  pushed  Green 
into  fame  at  once.  His  enlargement  of  it  into  A  History 
of  the  English  People  in  four  volumes  has  never  taken  so 
high  a  place  in  popular  fancy  as  its  smaller  predecessor. 
His  other  books,  The  Making  of  England  and  The  Conquest 
of  England,  were  both  written  when  he  was  practically 
under  the  shadow  of  death.  They  are  the  work  of  a  true 
student,  and,  all  things  considered,  it  is  astonishing  how 
good  they  are.  Green  had  a  wonderful  faculty  for  reviving 
the  past.  The  colour  of  a  robe  or  the  description  of  a 
species  of  food  would  suggest  to  him  a  whole  picture  of 
domestic  life  amongst  the  Saxons.  He  saw  at  a  glance  the 
outstanding  features  in  a  historical  landscape.  It  was  he  who 
made  Freeman  understand  that  a  town  in  history  is  a  real 
entity,  with  an  important  life  of  its  own,  and  with  records 
which  will  probably  afford  the  key  to  valuable  knowledge. 

Mandell  Creighton  is  another  of  the  historians  who  did 
an  important  part  of  his  work  at  Oxford.  He  was  the 
contemporary  of  Green,  but  outlived  him  for  nearly  twenty 
years.  He  was  for  a  considerable  time  fellow  and  tutor  of 
an  Oxford  college,  in  which  position  he  interested  himself 
in  the  work  of  establishing  the  new  school  of  modern 
history  in  the  university.  He  also  found  leisure  to  publish 


THE    OXFORD    GROUP  177 

The  Age  of  Elizabeth,  Simon  de  Montfort,  The  Tudors  and 
the  Reformation  and  the  first  two  volumes  of  The  History 
of  the  Papacy  during  the  Period  of  the  Reformation^  a  title 
which  became  inaccurate  when  the  author  found  that  the 
pressure  of  other  duties  would  prevent  him  from  carrying 
the  narrative  farther  down  than  the  sack  of  Rome. 

In  its  outstanding  events  the  life  of  Creighton  is 
very  like  that  of  Stubbs.  After  a  time  of  teaching  in 
Oxford  they  were  both  presented  to  country  livings  in  the 
Church  of  England ;  later  both  held  chairs  of  history, 
Stubbs  at  Oxford  and  Creighton  at  Cambridge ;  and  both 
finally  were  made  bishops.  It  is  doubtless  wise  to  select 
men  of  learning  to  fill  these  important  positions,  but  the 
administrative  duties  of  a  large  diocese  leave  little  margin 
for  the  private  work  of  students.  Creighton's  claim  to  fame 
must  rest  upon  the  work  accomplished  before  he  became 
Bishop  first  of  Peterborough  and  afterwards  of  London. 
His  largest  book,  The  History  of  the  Papacy ',  is  dry  and 
hard  reading.  Lord  Acton  spoke  of  this  work,  when  the 
first  two  volumes  appeared,  as  being  marked  by  a  fulness 
and  accuracy  which  were  "  prodigious  in  volumes  which  are 
but  the  prelude  to  an  introduction,  and  have  been  com- 
posed in  the  intervals  of  severer  duty  "  ;  but  Acton  thought 
poorly  of  the  third  and  fourth  volumes.  It  is  strange  that 
such  a  man  as  Creighton — a  brilliant,  incisive  talker,  epi- 
grammatic and  picturesque — failed  to  make  his  books 
brighter  than  they  are. 

Perhaps  the  characteristics  of  this  Oxford  school  of 
history  are  best  combined  in  Samuel  Rawson  Gardiner. 
Although  he  had  no  private  income  Gardiner  set  himself 
to  perform  the  unremunerative  task  of  writing  a  history  of 
England  during  the  period  between  1603  and  1660.  The 
work  occupied  him  for  forty  years ;  and  the  time  which 
was  not  devoted  to  this  task  had  to  be  spent  in  lecturing, 
examining,  or  writing  text  books,  in  order  to  make  sufficient 

W.  12 


i;8  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

money  to  live.  His  life  was  singularly  lonely.  He  stood 
much  aloof  from  his  contemporaries,  and  there  is  no 
evidence  of  intimate  intercourse  between  him  and  Stubbs, 
Freeman,  Creighton  or  Green.  It  is  this  absence  of  the 
personal  element  which  has  condemned  him  to  relative 
obscurity  and  partially  explains  why  it  was  not  until  he 
was  sixty-five  that  his  worth  was  recognised.  He  was 
then,  on  the  death  of  Froude,  offered  the  regius  professor- 
ship of  history  at  Oxford.  He  declined  the  honour,  because 
he  felt  that  its  duties  might  interfere  with  the  task  he  had 
set  himself  to  do.  In  spite  of  this  devotion  he  did  not 
complete  his  history,  in  fact  he  did  not  even  reach  the 
death  of  Cromwell.  What  makes  the  work  of  Gardiner  of 
value  is  its  extreme  fairness,  and  its  freedom  from  all 
personal  bias.  In  this  attribute  lies  also  the  cause  of  its 
want  of  popularity.  It  has  no  striking  features,  nor  any 
lively  narratives. 

§  7.     The  Philosophical  Historians 

Perhaps  what  we  miss  most  in  these  modern  historians 
of  the  last  section  is  an  interest  in  philosophy.  On  this 
side  the  group  of  Oxford  men  were  deficient.  There  was 
however  another  historian,  a  contemporary  and  a  mem- 
ber of  the  same  university  but  not  of  the  same  school, 
in  whom  it  was  conspicuously  strong.  This  was  Charles 
Henry  Pearson  (1830 — 1894),  who  won  fame  at  the  end  of 
his  life  by  the  remarkable  volume  entitled  National  Life 
and  Character.  His  Early  and  Middle  Ages  of  England, 
though  scholarly  and  able,  had  only  provoked  a  venomous 
attack  by  Freeman.  National  Life  and  Character  is  not  a 
history,  but  rather  an  essay  in  political  philosophy,  brilliant, 
but  excessively  discursive.  The  mournful  conclusion  at 
which  Pearson  arrives  is  that  the  day  is  drawing  near 
when  the  lower  races  will  predominate  over  the  higher, 
and  when  the  higher  will  lose  their  noblest  attributes. 


THE   PHILOSOPHICAL   HISTORIANS      179 

The  element  of  philosophy  is  prominent  also  in  John 
Robert  Seeley  (1834 — 1895),  and  its  prominence  is  the 
cause  of  the  opposition  to  him  which  may  be  detected  in 
Creighton,  who  found  him  professor  of  modern  history  in 
Cambridge  when  he  himself  went  there  as  professor  of 
ecclesiastical  history.  Seeley  was  the  son  of  the  author 
of  The  Greatest  of  all  the  Plantagenets,  a  historian  of 
considerable  eminence;  but  it  was  not  by  following  in 
the  lines  of  his  father's  greatness  that  the  son  first  won 
fame.  He  began  life  as  a  classical  lecturer  in  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge,  whence  he  passed  as  professor  of 
Latin  to  University  College,  London,  in  succession  to 
F.  W.  Newman,  the  author  of  a  famous  heretical  book, 
Phases  of  Faith,  and  brother  of  Cardinal  Newman.  It 
may  be  that  there  is  spiritual  as  well  as  bodily  contagion 
in  environment ;  it  is  at  least  curious  to  notice  that 
Seeley  too,  from  this  London  chair  of  Latin,  disturbed 
the  orthodox  world  by  Ecce  Homo,  a  book  which  puzzled 
it  and  won  for  its  author  a  popularity  he  never  gained  by 
his  still  more  powerful  work  as  historian. 

Seeley's  books  fall  into  two  divisions,  theological  and 
historical.  To  the  former  class  belong  Ecce  Homo  and 
Natural  Religion.  Both  were  enigmas  to  their  readers, 
who  could  not  make  out  what  manner  of  man  their  anony- 
mous author  was,  nor  why  he  had  written  upon  religion. 
He  seemed  to  stand  half-way  between  the  believer  and  the 
doubter.  In  Ecce  Homo  he  tries  to  build  up  the  character 
of  Christ  as  man.  In  the  preface  he  speaks  of  "  Christ  as 
the  creator  of  modern  theology  and  religion,"  and  in  the 
end  of  the  book  he  declares  that  "the  achievement  of 
Christ,  in  founding  by  his  single  will  and  power  a  structure 
so  durable  and  so  universal,  is  like  no  other  achievement 
which  history  records."  Natural  Religion  was  promised  as 
a  sequel  to  Ecce  Homo ;  but  the  author  had  travelled  far  in 
the  sixteen  years  which  intervened  between  the  two  books, 

12 — 2 


1 8o  VICTORIAN   LITERATURE 

and  in  the  latter  we  seem  to  see  rather  the  student  of 
Goethe  than  the  disciple  of  Christ. 

Seeley's  historical  works  are  marked  by  a  similar  pre- 
dilection for  ideas  as  distinguished  from  mere  narrative. 
The  Expansion  of  England  deals  with  the  policy  of  Eng- 
land in  the  eighteenth  century,  calling  special  attention  to 
the  marvellous  growth  of  the  British  Empire  and  to  the 
vital  importance  of  that  growth  as  a  fact  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  The  Growth  of  British  Policy  is  closely  allied  to 
it,  but  takes  a  wider  and  completer  view  of  foreign  policy 
from  the  accession  of  Elizabeth  to  the  union  of  the  parlia- 
ments of  England  and  Scotland.  Seeley  dwells  here  upon 
the  pride  and  confidence  in  England  which  sprang  from 
the  defeat  of  Spain ;  and  that  pride  and  confidence  are  the 
inspiration  of  his  work.  He  was  one  of  the  earliest  and 
ablest  of  the  writers  who  swept  away  the  idea,  prevalent 
in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  colonies 
were  a  burden  and  a  danger,  and  who  advocated  the 
federation  of  the  British  Empire.  Seeley's  longest  and 
most  learned  book,  but  also  his  least  satisfactory  one,  was 
his  Life  and  Times  of  Stein.  Its  theme  is  the  remaking 
of  Prussia  and  her  rise  against  Napoleon.  It  is  not  a 
biography  but  rather  a  history  of  the  time  of  Stein. 

Perhaps  the  best  method  to  adopt  in  order  to  under- 
stand Seeley's  writings  is  to  seek  for  his  own  conception 
of  the  universe.  To  his  mind  the  State  was  not  a  col- 
lection of  statesmen,  or  a  roll  of  citizens,  or  a  mechanical 
system  of  wheels  and  pinions,  but  a  great  organic  reality, 
the  inspiration  of  the  higher  life,  something  which  could 
be  felt,  but  could  by  no  means  be  reduced  to  logical  for- 
mulae. "  Who,"  he  says,  "  can  describe  that  which  unites 
men  ? "  This  lofty  conception  animated  his  lectures  and 
thrilled  his  pupils,  and  sent  warm  living  blood  coursing 
through  his  writings.  It  inspired  his  theological  as  well 
as  his  historical  writings.  It  is  the  keynote  of  his 


THE    PHILOSOPHICAL   HISTORIANS      i8r 

central  chapter  on  the  "  enthusiasm  of  humanity  "  in  Ecce 
Homo  ;  and  in  Natural  Religion  it  causes  him  to  dwell 
on  the  power  of  religion  to  elevate  the  life  of  man  as  a 
social  being. 

William  Edward  Hartpole  Lecky  (1838 — 1903)  had 
much  in  common  with  Seeley.  The  first  historical  work  of 
both  was  marked  by  the  philosophic  spirit.  Lecky's  History 
of  the  Rise  and  Influence  of  the  Spirit  of  Rationalism  in 
Europe  was  an  astonishing  book,  considering  that  it  was 
written  by  a  young  man  of  twenty-seven.  The  world 
asked  by  what  magic  he  had  been  able  to  crowd  into  so  few 
years  so  much  reading.  There  had  been  no  one  to  show 
him  the  way.  He  had  been  educated  at  Trinity  College, 
Dublin,  and  had  taken  his  degree  there ;  but  the  learning 
of  his  Rationalism  in  Europe  lay  far  out  of  the  beaten  track 
of  colleges  and  universities.  He  had  gathered  it  for  him- 
self from  the  bookshelves  of  the  Italian  libraries ;  and 
what  he  wrote  has  the  attraction  of  new  material  presented 
by  a  fresh  mind.  Everything  interested  him,  and  all  sorts 
of  curious  details  about  witchcraft,  trial  by  fire  and  water, 
and  other  customs  of  a  half-civilised  period  are  given  in 
his  work.  They  are  recorded,  not  for  their  own  sake,  but  to 
illustrate  the  nature  and  development  of  the  human  intel- 
lect. A  similar  spirit  animates  The  History  of  European 
Morals  from  Augustus  to  Charlemagne.  There  is  no  narra- 
tive of  events,  but  instead  the  aim  of  the  writer  is  to 
extract  from  the  period  reviewed  the  moral  conceptions 
which  prevailed  in  it.  It  was  a  great  task,  and  on  the 
whole  it  was  successfully  accomplished.  Lecky's  chief 
defect  was  lack  of  imagination :  he  could  not  live  in  the 
past  and  judge  its  shortcomings  by  the  standard  of  the 
time.  For  this  reason  his  tendency  is  to  be  unsympathetic, 
and  in  his  treatment  of  monasticism  he  is  distinctly  harsh. 
His  longest  work,  the  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  is  however  singularly  fair-minded  and  impartial. 


182  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

Much  of  it  deals  with  the  affairs  of  Ireland ;  and  whether 
he  writes  of  the  relations  of  England  and  Ireland,  or  of  the 
strife  between  Protestants  and  Catholics,  Lecky  succeeds 
in  holding  the  balance  fairly.  Though  he  was  a  patriotic 
Irishman,  his  patriotism  is  sane  and  sensible,  and  there 
is  no  distortion  of  facts. 

In  later  years  Lecky  reverted  to  his  early  philosophic 
tendency  in  the  choice  of  subjects.  Democracy  and  Liberty 
and  the  weaker  Map  of  Life  appeared  in  the  nineties.  In 
the  former  he  indicates  his  belief  that  the  special  danger 
of  democracy  is  that  of  undue  interference  with  in- 
dividual liberty.  He  objects  to  tyranny  in  the  shape  of 
trade  unions,  as  well  as  in  the  shape  of  a  monarch  or  an 
aristocracy. 

Contemporary  with  Lecky  was  another  historian  who 
took  all  historical  knowledge  as  his  province,  choosing  for 
his  special  theme  the  wide  subject  of  liberty.  John  Dalberg 
Acton,  Lord  Acton  (1834—1902),  was  professor  of  history 
at  Cambridge  and  probably  the  most  learned  teacher  of 
his  subject  in  Europe.  Unfortunately  most  of  his  store  of 
learning  is  buried  in  his  grave.  The  history  of  liberty 
which  he  planned  was  left  unfinished,  and  the  volume  of 
lectures,  the  letters  of  Quirinus  on  the  Ecumenical  Council 
and  some  scattered  articles,  are  a  poor  remainder  from  so 
great  a  man. 

Frederic  William  Maitland  (1850—1906),  who  held  a 
professorship  in  law,  not  history,  far  surpasses  his  con- 
temporary Acton  in  the  importance  of  his  writings.  It 
is  fairly  safe  to  say  that  no  English  scholar  of  the  last 
half-century  is  more  likely  than  Maitland  to  stand  higher 
in  reputation  in  the  year  2000  than  he  does  at  the  present 
time.  Maitland  has  written  for  the  most  part  on  highly 
technical  subjects,  and  is  in  consequence  comparatively 
little  read.  But  the  few  experts  who  are  best  entitled  to 
an  opinion  have  pronounced  decisively  in  his  favour. 


MILITARY    HISTORY  183 

Further,  he  was  not  only  a  profound  student  of  history, 
but  a  most  skilful  writer ;  and  they  who  read  him,  un- 
deterred by  technicality  of  subject,  usually  find  him  not 
only  intelligible  but  interesting.  Finally,  by  his  Roman 
Canon  Law  in  England  Maitland  has  overthrown  a  theory 
of  Church  history  and  swept  away  a  whole  library  written 
in  support  of  it.  Such  an  achievement  can  be  set  to  the 
credit  of  few  historians ;  and,  as  our  estimate  of  their 
importance  must  depend  in  a  large  measure  on  what  they 
have  accomplished,  it  is  evident  that  Maitland's  reputation 
must  rise  in  proportion  as  the  importance  of  this  phase  of 
his  work  is  realised. 

It  is  strange  that  of  all  the  historians  who  have  been 
mentioned  Carlyle  alone  devoted  an  important  work  to  the 
greatest  event  of  the  recent  past — the  French  Revolution. 
Sir  Archibald  Alison  tried  to  supply  the  want  with  a 
laborious  History  of  Europe  during  the  French  Revolution, 
an  abridged  edition  of  which  took  its  place  among  the 
school  books  of  the  forties,  because  it  was  the  best  account 
of  an  event  in  which  people  were  profoundly  interested. 
This  singular  deficiency  was  not  due  to  want  of  interest  in 
the  movement ;  perhaps  it  was  owing  to  the  very  greatness 
and  wide  scope  of  the  subject. 

§  8.     Military  History 

The  military  aspect  of  the  story  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion proved  less  embarrassing  than  the  political,  and  in  his 
History  of  the  War  in  the  Peninsula  Sir  William  Napier 
(1785 — 1860)  produced  one  of  the  best  narratives  of  military 
operations  in  the  language.  Napier  was  a  soldier  and  the 
descendant  of  a  line  of  soldiers.  He  was  the  brother  of  the 
great  Sir  Charles  Napier,  the  story  of  whose  campaigns  he 
tells  in  his  Conquest  of  Scinde.  He  knew  the  Peninsula 
as  he  knew  his  own  land,  he  had  fought  in  it  and  he 


1 84  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

understood  the  difficulties  of  those  who  had  to  do  so.  He 
was  familiar  with  the  character  of  the  people.  He  had  access 
to  many  papers  on  the  French  as  well  as  on  the  English 
side ;  and,  though  he  could  see  "  no  good  act  done  by  a 
Spanish  junta  or  a  Tory  minister,"  his  history  is  likely  to 
remain  the  great  classical  account  of  the  famous  contest. 

In  the  same  way  Alexander  William  Kinglake  (1809 — 
1891)  will  hold  his  place  with  The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea. 
Kinglake  was  not,  like  Napier,  a  soldier  by  profession  ;  but 
his  love  of  adventure  carried  him  across  the  Black  Sea  with 
the  troopships.  At  that  time  he  was  already  a  practised 
writer.  His  Eothen,  a  description  of  travels  in  the  East, 
had  caught  the  public  fancy  by  the  charm  of  its  language 
and  the  truthful  simplicity  of  the  description  of  scenes  which 
are  familiar  by  name  to  everyone.  Kinglake  brought  his 
power  of  animated  description  to  bear  on  the  battlefields  of 
the  Crimea.  His  chief  fault  is  diffuseness.  He  took  four 
hundred  pages  to  describe  the  battle  of  Inkerman,  while 
Napier  told  the  story  of  Albuera  in  eight.  But  this  copious- 
ness is  not  without  its  advantages.  The  condensed  style  of 
Napier,  though  greater  than  the  verbose  one  of  Kinglake, 
does  not  find  room  to  give  the  brave  deeds  of  the  individual 
soldier,  which  we  find  in  the  more  lengthy  narrative.  When 
Gladstone  pronounced  Kinglake's  book  "  too  bad  to  live," 
he  was  thinking  of  the  political  side,  on  which  he  declared 
that,  as  to  the  matter  within  his  cognisance,  it  was  entirely 
void  of  resemblance  to  the  truth;  when  he  added  that  it  was 
"  too  good  to  die,"  he  was  doubtless  thinking  of  its  vivacity 
and  eminent  readableness. 

The  only  other  work  in  this  department  of  history 
which  may  fitly  be  put  in  line  with  the  great  histories  of 
Napier  and  Kinglake  is  G.  F.  R.  Henderson's  (1854 — 1903) 
Stonewall  Jackson  and  the  Civil  War,  an  admirable  bio- 
graphy and  a  masterly  study  of  that  part  of  the  great 
American  Civil  War  in  which  Jackson  figured.  Few 


THE    HISTORIANS  185 

biographers  are  more  human,  and  probably  no  descriptions 
of  campaigns  are  at  once  more  satisfying  to  the  professional 
reader  and  more  clear  to  the  layman.  There  has  scarcely 
in  recent  years  been  a  better  example  of  a  great  theme 
treated  in  a  great  manner. 


§  2.     Students  of  the  Origins. 

Sharon  Turner,  1768 — 1847. 

History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  1799 — 1805. 
J.  M.  Kemble,  1807—1857. 

The  Saxons  in  England,  1849. 
Francis  Palgrave,  1788 — 1861. 

History  of  Normandy  and  of  England,  1851 — 1864. 
Richard  Chenevix  Trench,  1807—1886. 

On  the  Study  of  Words,  1851. 

English  Past  and  Present,  1855. 
Friedrich  Max  Miiller,  1823 — 1900. 

Languages  of  the  Seat  of  War  in  the  East,  1855. 

The  Science  of  Language,  1861 — 1863. 

Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,  1867 — 1875. 

§  3.     Ancient  History. 

Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis,  1806 — 1863. 

Inquiry  on  the  Credibility  of  Early  Roman  History,  1855. 
Thomas  Arnold,  1795 — 1842. 

History  of  Rome,  1838 — 1843. 
Connop  Thirlwall,  1797 — 1875. 

History  of  Greece,  1835 — 1844. 
George  Grote,  1794 — 1871. 

History  of  Greece,  1846 — 1856. 
George  Finlay,  1799 — 1875. 

History  of  Greece  from  its  Conquest  by  the  Romans,  1844 — 1861. 
Henry  Hart  Milman,  1791 — 1868. 

History  of  the  Jews,  1830. 

History  of  Christianity  under  the  Empire,  1840. 

History  of  Latin  Christianity,  1850 — 1855. 


186  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 


§  4.     Hallam  and  Macaulay. 

Henry  Hallam,  1777—1859. 

The  State  of  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages,  1818. 

The  Constitutional  History  of  England,  1827. 

An  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe,  1837 — 1839. 
Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  1800 — 1859. 

Critical  and  Historical  Essays,  1843. 

History  of  England,  1848 — 1861. 


§  5.     Froude. 

James  Anthony  Froude,  1818 — 1894. 
The  Nemesis  of  Faith,  1849. 
History  of  England,  1 8  5  6 — 1870. 
Short  Studies  on  Great  Subjects,  1867—1883. 
The  English  in  Ireland,  1872 — 1874. 
Thomas  Carlyle,  1882—1884. 
Oceana,  1886. 


§  6.     The  Oxford  Group. 

Edward  Augustus  Freeman,  1823 — 1892. 

History  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  1867 — 1879. 

The  Reign  of  William  Rufus,  1882. 

The  History  of  Sicily,  1891—1894. 
William  Stubbs,  1825—1901. 

The  Constitutional  History  of  England,  1873 — 1878. 

The  Early  Plantagenets,  1874. 
John  Richard  Green,  1837 — 1883. 

A  Short  History  of  the  English  People,  1874. 

A  History  of  the  English  People,  1877—1880. 

The  Making  of  England,  1881. 
Mandell  Creighton,  1843—1901. 

Simon  de  Montfort,  1876. 

History  of  the  Papacy,  1882 — 1894. 
Samuel  Rawson  Gardiner,  1829 — 1902. 

History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of  James  /,  1863 — 1901. 


THE    HISTORIANS  .  187 


§  7.     The  Philosophical  Historians. 

Charles  Henry  Pearson,  1830 — 1894. 

The  Early  and  Middle  Ages  of  England,  1861. 

National  Life  and  Character,  1893. 
John  Robert  Seeley,  1834—1895. 

Ecce  Homo,  1865. 

The  Life  and  Times  of  Stein,  1878. 

Natural  Religion,  1882. 

The  Expansion  of  England,  1883. 

The  Growth  of  British  Policy,  1895. 
W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  1838—1903. 

The  Rise  and  Influence  of  the  Spirit  of  Rationalism  in  Europe, 
1865. 

History  of  European  Morals,  1869. 

History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  1878 — 1890. 

Democracy  and  Liberty,  1896. 
John  Dalberg  Acton,  Lord  Acton,  1834 — 1902. 
Frederic  William  Maitland,  1850 — 1906. 

The  History  of  English  Law  before  Edward  I  (with  Sir  F.  Pollock), 

1895. 

Domesday  Book  and  Beyond,  1897. 
Township  and  Borough,  1898. 
Roman  Canon  Law  in  England,  1898. 
Archibald  Alison,  1792—1867. 

History  of  Europe  during  the  French  Revolution,  1833 — 1842. 


§  8.     Military  History. 

W.  F.  P.  Napier,  1785—1860. 

History  of  the  War  in  the  Peninsula,  1828—1840. 
Alexander  William  Kinglake,  1809—1891. 

Eothen,  1844. 

The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  1863—1887. 
G.  F.  R.  Henderson,  1854—1903. 

Stonewall  Jackson  and  the  Civil  War,  1898. 


CHAPTER   V 

BIOGRAPHY   AND   CRITICISM 

§  I.     The  Biographers 

THE  writing  of  biography  is,  both  in  England  and 
elsewhere,  a  thing  of  late  development.  In  the  earlier 
periods  we  find  stray  books  of  the  kind,  and  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century  we  meet  with  the  con- 
spicuous examples  of  Johnson's  Lives  of  the  Poets,  and 
Boswell's  great  Life  of  Johnson  himself.  But  the  recognised 
business  of  biography  hardly  begins  until  the  nineteenth 
century. 

Among  the  biographical  works  of  the  Victorian  era, 
Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott  holds  the  highest  place.  The 
author  had  already  tried  his  hand  at  the  difficult  task  of 
writing  a  Life  of  Burns,  and  accomplished  it  with  such 
success  that  Andrew  Lang  pronounces  him  to  be,  of  all 
the  poet's  biographers,  "he  who  divides  us  least."  But, 
admirable  though  this  life  of  Burns  is,  the  Life  of  Scott 
is  much  greater.  For  in  this  work  Lockhart  had  the 
advantage  of  being  in  perfect  harmony  with  his  subject. 
"  Lockhart,"  says  Lang,  "  had  been  born  to  love  Scott,  and 
beyond  even  that  regard  which  Scott's  works  awaken  in 
every  gentle  heart,  to  make  him  by  all  men  yet  more 
beloved."  Lockhart  was  brought  up  in  Edinburgh,  his 
national  and  his  professional  interests  were  the  same  as 
Scott's,  he  moved  in  the  same  circle,  and  he  made  the 


THE   BIOGRAPHERS  189 

connexion  closer  by  becoming  Scott's  son-in-law.  In 
spite  of  this  intimate  relationship  and  profound  love, 
he  was  able  to  retain  his  clearness  of  vision  and  sanity 
of  judgment.  He  saw  the  greatness  of  Scott,  but  he 
also  saw  his  weakness,  and  knew  how  to  deal  with  it 
without  falling  into  excess,  as  Macaulay  and  Taine  do 
when  they  touch  upon  the  love  of  Scott  for  wealth. 
Lockhart  makes  it  clear  that  Scott's  love  of  money  was 
intimately  connected  with  the  higher  dreams  of  his  imagi- 
nation. He  aspired  to  be  the  founder  of  a  family,  and 
Abbotsford,  his  house,  was  "  a  romance  in  stone  and 
lime."  The  almost  unbounded  hospitality  exercised  there 
for  years  was  a  realisation  of  the  visions  which  constantly 
filled  his  mind.  His  ambition  needed  more  money  than 
he  could  afford,  and  was  therefore  a  mistaken  one,  but 
it  was  far  from  vulgar. 

Perhaps  the  most  trying  test  to  apply  to  a  biographer 
is  his  use  of  ordinary  everyday  incidents,  so  as  to  reveal 
the  character  of  his  subject,  and  to  give  life  to  the  picture. 
Lockhart  has  done  this  task  with  masterly  skill.  He  has 
gathered  innumerable  details  of  the  life  of  Scott.  There 
are  stories  of  the  hunting  parties,  the  joyous  picnics,  the 
slow  drives  through  Edinburgh,  where  every  stone  had  for 
Scott  a  memory,  of  the  famous  visitors  who  came  and 
went,  of  the  faithful  servants  who  never  went,  of  the  beloved 
dogs  whose  one  fault  was  that  they  could  not  live  for  ever. 
Lockhart  brings  all  into  his  picture.  And  in  the  centre  is 
the  "  shirra,"  as  Scott  liked  to  be  called,  the  soul  of  every- 
thing, his  big  heart  overflowing  with  affection  and  his 
humour  giving  zest  to  every  hour  of  the  day. 

Even  if  there  were  no  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  this 
admirable  biography  would  suffice  to  refute  the  notion  that 
the  lives  of  literary  men  are  too  uneventful  to  be  suitable 
for  biography.  No  judgment  could  be  more  mistaken. 
Nearly  all  the  finest  biographies  of  the  world  have  men 


190  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

of  letters  for  their  subject.  Great  explorers  are  but  dimly 
seen  through  their  wanderings,  great  soldiers  are  usually 
silent,  and  great  statesmen  have  their  lips  sealed  by  con- 
siderations of  policy.  The  literary  man,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  usually  a  good  talker,  a  ready  letter  writer  and  an 
outspoken  critic ;  and  in  all  these  ways  he  is  piling  up 
material  for  his  biographer. 

Of  the  lives  of  the  literary  men  of  this  period,  except 
Carlyle's  Life  of  Sterling  and  Froude's  Carlyle,  there  is 
none  to  compare  with  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott.  Perhaps 
the  least  distant  is  Stanley's  Life  of  Arnold.  The  task 
of  writing  about  Arnold  was  congenial  to  Stanley,  and 
his  life  of  the  great  headmaster  is  the  best  work  he  did. 
Arnold  was  a  man  of  high  character  with  the  great  gift 
of  knowing  his  own  mind.  It  simply  remained  for  his 
biographer  to  follow  his  lead  ;  and  that,  for  Stanley,  was 
easy.  The  pupil  had  been  made  upon  the  model  of  his 
beloved  master  and  saw  eye  to  eye  with  him  in  most 
things.  Even  the  vexed  question  whether  Arnold,  with 
his  heterodox  views,  had  still  a  legitimate  place  in  the 
Church  of  England,  presented  no  difficulty  to  the  man  who 
did  not  see  why  Roman  Catholics  should  not  be  members 
of  the  Church  of  England,  if  it  were  only  made  legal. 

The  Life  of  Goethe  by  George  Henry  Lewes  was  a  task 
of  much  greater  difficulty  than  that  undertaken  by  Stanley. 
But  Lewes  did  it  so  thoroughly  that  his  book  remained 
until  recently  an  authority  even  in  Germany  itself.  The 
biographer-in-ordinary  of  the  period  was  however  John 
Forster  (1812 — 1876).  He  wrote  the  lives  of  many  states- 
men and  men  of  letters,  and  is  memorable  chiefly  for  two, 
The  Life  of  Landor  and  The  Life  of  Dickens,  because  in 
these  cases  he  is  an  original  authority.  For  Dickens 
especially  Forster  must  always  remain  the  principal  source 
of  information.  He  was  the  close  friend  of  Dickens,  who 
seems  to  have  put  his  very  soul  into  Forster's  keeping. 


THE   EDINBURGH   CRITICS  191 

This  close  connexion  set  Forster  a  hard  task,  and  brought 
upon  him  the  charge  of  writing  the  story  of  this  intimate 
friendship  rather  than  the  biography  of  the  great  novelist. 

The  Life  of  Milton  by  David  Masson  (1822 — 1907) 
is  widely  different  from  The  Life  of  Dickens,  being  more 
historical  than  biographical.  When  a  man  attempts  to 
write  the  "life  and  times,"  he  necessarily  sacrifices  some- 
thing of  true  biography,  which  is  almost  independent  of 
"  times."  But  there  remain  two  biographies  which  are 
deserving  of  brief  notice  because  of  their  close  connexion 
with  the  literary  history  of  the  time.  These  are  Samuel 
Smiles's  Memoir  of  John  Murray  and  Margaret  Oliphant's 
William  Blackwood  and  his  Sons.  They  deal  with  the  two 
houses  which,  of  all  the  publishing  houses  in  England, 
have  had  most  of  the  literary  spirit.  Though  Byron  was 
the  author  of  the  sneer,  "  Now  Barabbas  was  a  publisher," 
his  own  relations  with  the  founder  of  the  house  of  Murray 
prove  that  he  had  no  very  serious  meaning  in  uttering  it ; 
and  though  Scott,  in  anger,  once  sent  a  message  to  the 
first  William  Blackwood,  to  say  that  he  was  "one  of  the 
Black  Hussars  of  Literature,  who  neither  give  nor  receive 
criticism,"  no  one  knew  better  than  he  the  solid  worth 
of  the  founder  of  the  Edinburgh  firm.  For  the  literary 
history  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  these 
two  books  are  treasures  of  great  value. 

§  2.     The  Edinburgh  Critics 

When  in  1802  Francis  Jeffrey,  Sydney  Smith,  Henry 
Brougham  and  Francis  Horner  met  in  Edinburgh  to  found 
a  critical  journal,  they  were  conscious  that  they  were  taking 
a  new  departure  ;  but  they  hardly  realised  its  far-reaching 
importance.  Their  periodical  The  Edinburgh  Review  was 
to  them  something  of  a  joke.  Under  the  cover  of  anony- 
mity they  could  air  their  wit  at  the  expense  of  their 
neighbours,  and  pronounce  sentence  upon  newcomers,  safe 


192  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

from  detection   under   the  editorial  "  we."      The  Review 

grew  to  be  a  force  in  the  country  its  promoters  had  little 

dreamed  of.     They  were  Whigs,  and  though  they  had  not 

meant  to  be  the  organ  of  their  party,  they  became  so. 

Therefore  strong  Tories  like  Scott  felt  bound  to  start  The 

Quarterly  Review  as  a  medium   for  their  Toryism.     The 

first  number  of  the  Quarterly  appeared  in   1808.     A  few 

years  later,  in  1817,  BlackwoocTs  Magazine  took  the  field. 

It  came  out  more  frequently  and  was  written  in  a  lighter 

tone  than   the  two  quarterlies.      These  periodicals  were 

followed  in  1820  by  The  London  Magazine,  in  1824  by  the 

serious  Westminster  Review  and  in  1830  by  the  bright  and 

witty  Erasers  Magazine.     In  1827  The  Athenceum  and  in 

1828  the  Spectator  appeared.    The  five  last  were  published  in 

London,  but  in  the  beginning  of  periodical  literature  the  seat 

of  government  was  undoubtedly  in  the  capital  of  the  north. 

Edinburgh  had  inherited  a  tradition  of  literature  and 

learning.      In    it   Allan    Ramsay   and    Ferguson,    Hume, 

Robertson,  Adam  Smith  and  Dugald  Stewart  had  all  lived 

and  worked.     Their  young  successors  had  the  genius  of 

Scott  to  draw  them  out.     They  felt  they  were  expected  to 

live  up  to  the  traditions  of  their  city,  and  they  did  so.    The 

setting  up  in  their  midst  of  two  of  the  three  most  important 

of  British  publishing  firms— Constable,  who  was  connected 

with  Scott's  novels,  and  William  Blackwood — ensured  a 

market   for   the  wares  of  literary  adventurers  ;    and    the 

appearance  of  the  band  of  verse  writers  who  are  grouped 

together  under  the  shadow  of  Wordsworth,  and  known  as 

the  Lake  Poets,  supplied  the  budding  critics  with  a  target 

for  their  wit.     There  was  neither  doubt  nor  diffidence  in 

this  group  of  literary  free-lances.     Brought  up  upon  the 

laws  of  verse  practised  by  Pope,  they  condemned  the  work 

of  Wordsworth.    Jeffrey  began  his  review  of  The  Excursion 

with  the  words,  "  This  will  never  do."      Southey,  who  was 

critic  as  well  as  poet,  met  Jeffrey  with  the  retort :  "  He 


THE   EDINBURGH    CRITICS  193 

crush  The  Excursion  \  Tell  him  he  might  as  well  fancy 
he  could  crush  Skiddaw."  At  a  later  date,  in  Blackwood's 
Magazine,  Lockhart  wrote  objectionable  articles  on  The 
Cockney  School  of  Poetry ;  and  Wilson,  another  of  this 
northern  group,  though  he  had  previously  praised  Words- 
worth with  generous  warmth,  called  The  Excursion  "  the 
worst  poem  of  any  character  in  the  language."  But  while 
these  ardent  young  Scots  were  vainly  assailing  Skiddaw 
and  blindly  misplacing  their  youthful  enthusiasm,  Coleridge 
and  Hazlitt  in  the  south  had  with  open  arms  bid  the  recent 
writers  of  the  romantic  school  welcome.  The  Edinburgh 
critics  were  a  people  sitting  in  darkness,  and  they  failed 
to  recognise  the  light  that  had  broken  through.  For 
the  Edinburgh  reviewers  Pope  had  pronounced  the  last 
word,  and  no  progress  seemed  possible  beyond  his  Essay 
on  Man,  The  Dunciad  and  Satires  and  Epistles.  So  it 
will  always  be  ;  to  the  end  there  will  be  some  who  will 
fight  with  all  their  strength  for  the  old  methods  against 
the  new. 

Most  of  the  Edinburgh  critics  whom  we  have  mentioned 
belong  to  the  revolutionary  period  rather  than  to  the 
Victorian  era  ;  but  Lockhart  and  Wilson  are  two  who 
come  into  our  time.  John  Wilson  (1785 — 1854)  was  the 
senior  of  the  two.  He  was  the  son  of  a  Paisley  manufac- 
turer, and,  going  to  Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  he  won 
there  a  high  reputation  for  talent,  and  a  still  higher  for 
athletics.  As  the  loss  of  the  fortune  he  had  inherited  from 
his  father  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  qualify  himself  for 
some  lucrative  profession,  he  turned  to  the  bar.  But  he 
only  received  one  brief,  and  with  that  he  knew  not  what  to 
do.  He  found  his  real  work,  as  well  as  his  best  chance  of 
winning  a  livelihood,  in  the  pages  of  Blackwood's  Magazine. 
Here,  under  the  name  of  Christopher  North,  he  wrote  the 
famous  papers  known  as  the  Nodes  Ambrosianae  and  The 
Recreations  of  Christopher  North. 

w.  13 


194  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

John  Gibson  Lockhart  (1794 — 1854)  we  already  know 
as  the  biographer  and  also  the  son-in-law  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  He  likewise  worked  with  Wilson  upon  the  staff  of 
"  Maga,"  the  tender  name  for  BlackwoocTs  Magazine ;  but 
after  his  marriage  with  Sophia  Scott  he  was  drawn  into  the 
Abbotsford  circle  and  his  connexion  with  the  Blackwood 
reviewers  became  less  close.  In  1825  he  accepted  the 
editorship  of  The  Quarterly  Review  and  moved  to  London, 
where  he  remained  in  this  office  for  twenty-eight  years.  He 
resigned  the  editorship  a  few  months  before  his  lonely  death. 
He  had  outlived  not  only  Scott  but  all  Scott's  children, 
most  of  his  contemporaries  and  all  but  one  of  his  own 
family.  A  conservative  critic,  he  hardly  liked  or  en- 
couraged new  poets  with  new  ways.  He  rode  roughshod 
over  the  verses  of  the  young  Tennyson,  as  he  had  de- 
preciated Keats,  with  the  rest  of  what  he  called  the 
Cockney  school.  Still,  to  be  just  to  him,  under  his  editor- 
ship of  the  Quarterly^  if  not  from  his  pen,  a  considerable 
number  of  the  younger  poets  received  favourable  treatment. 
Among  those  who  are  appreciated  we  find  Fanny  Kemble, 
the  erratic  Hartley  Coleridge,  Henry  Taylor,  John  Sterling, 
Aubrey  de  Vere,  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  Mrs  Norton 
and  a  group  of  other  poetesses.  The  articles  on  Taylor 
and  Fanny  Kemble  were  by  Lockhart. 

§  3.     Leigh  Hunt  and  De  Quincey 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  early  Victorian  era 
was  particularly  strong  in  criticism.  Hazlitt,  Coleridge  and 
Lamb  were  dead.  Of  the  younger  men  the  only  one  of  first- 
rate  importance  who  was  writing  criticism  was  Cartyle  ;  for 
Macaulay's  essays  were,  as  he  himself  said,  historical  far 
more  than  critical.  In  point  of  fact,  much  of  the  best 
criticism  of  that  time  was  the  work  of  two  survivors  of  the 
previous  age — Leigh  Hunt  and  De  Quincey. 

James   Henry  Leigh  Hunt  (1784 — 1859)  put  his  best 


MATTHEW   ARNOLD  195 

work  into  Examiners^  Tatlers,  Reflectors,  Indicators,  etc.,  etc., 
which  he  edited  in  order  to  make  a  living.  He  found  it 
a  hard  task  to  make  both  ends  meet,  and  Mrs  Carlyle, 
who  lived  near  him  in  Cheyne  Row,  becomes  wrathful 
over  the  frequent  borrowings  by  her  neighbours,  the  penni- 
less Hunts.  The  hard-working  father  had  an  astonishing 
fertility  of  mind.  He  practically  wrote  the  four  pages  of 
the  daily  Taller  himself.  As  a  critic  he  was  remarkably 
open-minded.  To  him  belongs  the  honour  of  being  able 
to  see  the  enchantment  in  Keats  while  Blackwood  was 
scoffing  at  him.  Yet,  like  almost  all  his  contemporaries, 
he  is  strangely  inconsistent  with  himself. 

Hunt's  contemporary  Thomas  de  Quincey  (1785 — 1859) 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Wilson  at  the  Lakes,  and  was 
by  him  introduced  to  Blackwood,  who  found  him  at 
once  a  delight  and  a  worry.  De  Quincey  never  could  be 
ready  in  time ;  but  he  was  invaluable  as  a  contributor,  for 
he  was  familiar  with  many  subjects,  and  able  to  theorise 
even  where  he  had  but  scanty  knowledge.  He  wrote 
exquisite  English.  His  weakness  was  that  the  music  of 
his  own  phrases  tempted  him  to  use  words  out  of  proportion 
to  the  meaning.  In  criticism,  when  De  Quincey  is  at  his 
best  he  is  unsurpassed.  The  famous  essay  On  the  Knocking 
at  Ihe  Gate  in  Macbeth  is  perhaps  the  finest  example  in  Eng- 
lish of  the  power  of  imagination  to  throw  light  upon  a  dark 
passage.  But  in  criticism  as  in  other  things  the  greater 
part  of  his  work  is  marred  by  diffuseness. 

§  4.     Matthew  Arnold 

Before  Hunt  and  De  Quincey  died  in  1859,  a  consider- 
able number  of  notable  critics  of  a  younger  generation  had 
made  their  appearance.  Several  of  them  were  great  in 
other  things  besides  criticism.  Ruskin,  Thackeray,  Dante 
Rossetti  and  Matthew  Arnold  were  all  workers  in  divers 
fields  of  literature  as  well  as  critics.  Three  of  them  may 

13—2 


196  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

be  briefly  dismissed,  as  far  as  their  critical  writings  are 
concerned ;  yet  no  account  of  the  criticism  of  the  period 
should  wholly  pass  them  over.  Thackeray's  English 
Humourists  is,  even  for  those  who  differ  most  widely 
from  him  on  special  points,  or  with  regard  to  particular 
writers,  among  the  most  valuable  of  the  books  which  deal 
with  the  eighteenth  century.  Dante  Rossetti  need  only 
be  named  for  the  sake  of  his  Hand  and  Soul,  the  best 
extant  statement  of  the  principles  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
school.  And  the  Modern  Painters  of  Ruskin,  the  first 
volume  of  which  appeared  in  1843,  contains  a  body  of 
literary  criticism  second  in  importance  only  to  the  criticism 
of  painting,  which  is  the  professed  theme  of  that  very 
discursive  and  varied  work. 

Matthew  Arnold  is  different.  His  critical  work  is  of  an 
importance  which  rivals,  and  even,  in  the  opinion  of  many, 
surpasses  that  of  his  poetry.  Criticism  was,  in  Arnold's 
case,  a  later  development  than  the  pursuit  of  poetry.  His 
first  volume  of  poems  was  published  in  1849  ;  his  first 
piece  of  memorable  criticism  was  the  essay  prefixed  to 
another  volume  of  poems  four  years  later.  But  we  have 
seen  that  within  twenty  years  of  his  first  appearance  he 
had  almost  ceased  to  write  poetry,  while  he  remained  a 
critic  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

Arnold  defines  criticism  as  "the  endeavour,  in  all 
branches  of  knowledge,  theology,  philosophy,  history,  art, 
science,  to  see  the  object  as  in  itself  it  really  is."  He 
meant  therefore  a  great  deal  more  than  the  criticism  of 
books.  He  felt  that  England  had  fallen  behind  other 
nations  in  this  art,  and  as  his  highest  desire  was  to  be 
of  use  to  England  he  tried  to  give  her  what  she  had 
not.  Arnold  thought  that  the  English  critics  had  gone 
astray  in  their  great  admiration  of  romanticism.  He 
himself  was  fully  conscious  of  its  defects.  He  never 
enthusiastically  loved  Shelley,  and  only  late  in  life  found 


MATTHEW   ARNOLD  197 

the  full  charm  of  Keats.  Coleridge  irritated  him  as  often 
as  he  pleased  him.  He  admired  the  spirit  and  power  of 
Elizabethan  literature,  but  found  it  "steeped  in  humours 
and  whimsicality  up  to  its  very  lips  " ;  and  though  no  one 
has  praised  Shakespeare  more  nobly  than  he  in  his  well- 
known  sonnet,  he  insisted  that  Milton  was  a  safer  model 
for  England.  He  urged  that  the  revolt  against  the  laws 
that  guided  the  eighteenth  century  had  gone  too  far,  and 
that  the  liberty  which  that  revolt  had  won  for  England 
was  in  danger  of  degenerating  into  licence.  Arnold  was 
by  nature  unsympathetic  towards  romance,  partly  because 
he  felt  its  apparent  lawlessness.  To  him  England  was 
"  the  native  home  of  intellectual  eccentricity  of  all  kinds," 
and  he  wanted  to  set  this  right.  He  thought  he  saw 
one  means  of  doing  so  by  turning  our  interest  to  French 
literature  rather  than  to  German.  He  did  not  set  the 
genius  of  France  above  that  of  Germany.  The  line, 
"  France,  famed  in  all  arts,  in  none  supreme,"  expresses 
his  deliberate  judgment.  He  held  that  she  had  no  genius 
fit  to  measure  against  Goethe,  to  say  nothing  of  Shake- 
speare. But  he  thought  we  had  already  too  many  of  the 
characteristics  of  the  Teutonic  race.  What  he  saw  in 
French  literature  was  the  definiteness  of  meaning,  clearness 
of  expression,  open-mindedness,  elasticity  and  brightness 
of  intelligence  which  we  needed.  By  quoting  from  his 
essay  On  the  Function  of  Criticism  at  the  Present  Time,  we 
can  get  at  his  ideals.  He  sums  up  the  rule  for  English 
criticism  in  the  word  disinterestedness,  and  explains  that 
he  means  "  keeping  aloof  from  what  is  called  the  practical 
view  of  things.  To  try  and  approach  truth  from  one  side 
after  another,  not  to  strive  or  cry,  nor  to  persist  in  pressing 
forward,  on  any  one  side,  with  violence  and  self  will, — it  is 
only  thus,  it  seems  to  me,  that  mortals  may  hope  to  gain 
any  vision  of  the  mysterious  Goddess,  whom  we  shall  never 
see  except  in  outline,  but  only  thus  even  in  outline." 


i98  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

Along  with  this  disinterestedness  Arnold  insists  that 
the  critic  must  have  knowledge  of  the  best  that  has 
been  thought  and  said  in  the  world  ;  and  in  this  way, 
by  seeing  how  other  nations  do  what  we  are  doing,  we 
shall  avoid  narrow  mindedness.  But  although  he  saw 
the  need  of  knowledge,  Arnold  was  fully  alive  to  the 
dangers  of  a  vast  load  of  learning.  What  it  was  vital 
to  know  was  not  everything  that  had  been  thought  and 
said,  but  the  best. 

Besides  the  volumes  which  criticise  literature  Arnold 
has  three  other  groups  of  critical  writings  which  deserve 
mention.  As  assistant-commissioner  under  an  educational 
commission  appointed  by  Government  to  enquire  into  the 
state  of  popular  education,  it  was  his  duty  to  report  upon 
the  schools  and  universities  of  France  and  Germany.  Then 
we  have  belonging  to  the  second  group  his  political 
criticisms,  such  as  the  pamphlet  England  and  the  Italian 
Question  and  Culture  and  Anarchy,  which  is  described  as 
"  an  essay  in  political  and,  social  criticism."  But  his  finest 
criticism  on  the  social  side  is  contained  in  Friendship's 
Garland.  These  delightful  essays  in  the  form  of  letters 
are  the  richest  of  all  Arnold's  writings  in  wit  and  humour. 
Yet  he  was  most  unwilling  to  reprint  them.  In  the  third 
group  we  have  his  theological  criticisms — St  Paul  and 
Protestantism,  Literature  and  Dogma,  God  and  the  Bible 
and  Last  Essays  on  Church  and  Religion.  These  books 
are  called  for  convenience  theological  ;  but  they  are  really 
the  layman's  protest  against  the  commonly  accepted  idea 
that  only  a  trained  student  of  divinity  can  pronounce 
judgment  upon  the  truths  of  religion.  Arnold  urges  the 
man  of  science,  the  philosopher,  the  students  of  literature 
and  history — all  seeders  after  truth — to  believe  that  they 
too  have  the  opportunity  of  seeing  phases' of  the  truth  and 
the  right  to  express  their  views. 


BROWN,   STEPHEN,    HENLEY  199 


§  5.     Brown,  Stephen,  Henley 

No  other  critic  of  the  time  equalled  Arnold  in  im- 
portance and  influence,  but  Walter  Bagehot,  whom  we 
have  discussed  amongst  the  philosophers,  may  be  mentioned 
in  passing  for  the  sake  of  his  excellent  literary  essays,  and 
Dr  John  Brown  (1810 — 1882)  for  the  exquisite  delicacy  of 
his  taste,  and  also  because  no  other  equally  convenient 
opportunity  can  be  found  for  mentioning  the  author  of  Rab 
and  his  Friends.  Brown  knew  Edinburgh  in  the  days  of  its 
literary  greatness.  Jeffrey  had  congratulated  him  on  his 
Locke  and  Sydenham  ;  he  had  with  loving  reverence  watched 
Sir  Walter  Scott  limp  along  Princes  Street.  He  has  left 
too  few  reminiscences  of  those  days,  but  he  has  given  us 
the  touching  stones  of  little  Marjorie  Fleming,  Rab  and  his 
Friends  and  Our  Dogs.  Each  is  perfect  in  its  way,  and 
by  them  his  fame  will  live.  The  story  of  Rab  is  very 
simple  and  very  short.  A  big  dog,  his  hard  worked  friend 
the  carrier  and  the  carrier's  sick  wife  are  the  subjects  ;  but 
none  of  them  can  be  forgotten.  No  one  ever  wrote  better 
than  Dr  John  Brown  upon  dogs,  and  few  can  surpass  him  in 
criticism,  where  success  depends  upon  sympathy  and  fine- 
ness of  feeling  and  a  delicate  sense  of  the  poetical.  It  is 
these  qualities  that  give  value  to  the  paper  on  the  death  of 
Thackeray,  to  that  on  Henry  Vaughan,  and  above  all  to 
the  faultless  criticism  of  the  old  Scotch  song,  "  Oh,  I'm 
wat,  wat." 

It  will  suffice  in  this  section  to  notice  two  more  of  the 
critics  who  were  for  different  reasons  prominent  in  the 
later  years  of  the  nineteenth  century.  One  of  these  is 
Leslie  Stephen  (1832 — 1904),  who  married  a  daughter  of 
Thackeray.  He  edited  the  early  volumes  of  the  Dictionary 
of  National  Biography,  and  did  a  surprising  amount  of  work 
besides  criticism.  Indeed  his  most  solid  performances 


200  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

were  more  philosophical  than  critical.  He  was  a  ration- 
alist, and  a  close  student  of  the  English  thinkers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  and  of  the  Utilitarian  school.  And  these 
tendencies  in  his  mind  supply  the  key  to  his  criticisms. 
Stephen  was  eminently  sound  and  solid,  without  being 
heavy.  He  was  somewhat  cold  in  his  atmosphere,  dis- 
trusting impressionism  and  shunning  appreciations  and 
enthusiasm.  He  brought  back  into  criticism  not  a  little  of 
the  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century,  for  he  agreed  with 
Arnold  that  the  reaction  against  it  had  been  pushed  too 
far  by  the  romanticists.  He  was  at  his  best  in  a  sort  of 
condensed  biography,  rather  than  in  strictly  literary 
criticism.  Examples  of  this  special  gift  may  be  found  in 
his  Studies  of  a  Biographer  and  in  his  various  contributions 
to  the  series  of  English  Men  of  Letters. 

The  other  literary  critic  referred  to  is  William  Ernest 
Henley  (1849 — 1903),  whose  virile  energy  is  impressed 
upon  his  prose  essays  as  well  as  upon  his  poems.  No 
man  of  the  younger  generation  exercised  greater  in- 
fluence over  his  contemporaries,  none  was  more  fearless 
and  independent  in  judgment.  His  faults  are  excessive 
dogmatism  and  a  tendency  to  crude  denunciation.  His 
merit  is  an  extraordinary  power  of  penetrating  to  the 
heart  of  the  matter.  His  brilliant  essay  on  Burns  would 
not  easily  be  surpassed  were  it  not  so  hard  and  un- 
sympathetic. 

§  6.     The  Criticism  of  Art 

The  criticism  of  art,  as  distinct  from  literature,  is,  in 
England,  a  special  feature  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
There  had  been,  indeed,  at  an  earlier  date,  a  few  attempts 
such  as  the  Discourses  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds ;  but  before 
the  nineteenth  century  nothing  like  a  literature  on  the 
subject  existed.  Already  however  in  the  early  decades  of 
that  century  we  see  the  beginnings  of  such  a  literature. 


THE   CRITICISM    OF   ART  201 

Lamb  and  Hazlitt  both  wrote  on  the  subject,  and  the 
latter's  Conversations  of  Northcote  was  warmly  praised  by 
Ruskin.  To  those  early  years  belong  in  substance,  though 
not  in  date  of  publication,  the  fascinating  Autobiography  of 
the  painter  Benjamin  Haydon,  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
books  of  self-revelation  ever  penned.  But  all  these  earlier 
writings  seem  fragmentary  and  amateurish  in  comparison 
with  the  aesthetic  work  of  John  Ruskin  (1819—1900). 
He  was  the  son  of  a  wine  merchant  who  was  descended 
from  a  line  of  Scottish  lairds.  His  parents  were  cousins 
and  he  was  their  only  child.  He  never  went  to  school, 
but  he  had  within  his  own  home,  till  he  went  to  Ox- 
ford, influences  well  fitted  to  develop  his  nature.  His 
father  was  a  man  singularly  sensitive  to  the  best  in 
literature  and  art.  In  Praeterita  Ruskin  describes  him  as 
"  an  absolutely  beautiful  reader  of  the  best  poetry  and 
prose."  He  read  aloud  to  his  boy  "all  the  Shakespeare 
comedies  and  historical  plays  again  and  again,  all  Scott 
and  all  Don  Quixote."  Thus  Ruskin  under  his  father's 
guidance  read  the  right  books.  With  him  he  also  saw  the 
right  things.  In  the  summer  the  family  would  combine 
business  with  pleasure,  and  visit,  in  search  of  orders  for 
wine,  the  old  halls  and  castles  of  England.  In  1833  Prout's 
Sketches  in  Flanders  and  Germany  sent  them  on  a  tour  up 
the  Rhine  and  into  Switzerland.  The  gift  of  an  illustrated 
edition  of  Italy  by  Rogers  was  one  of  the  most  memorable 
incidents  of  Ruskin's  youth ;  for  in  it  he  met  for  the  first 
time  with  the  work  of  Turner,  whom  he  was  destined 
afterwards  to  bring  into  his  kingdom. 

The  mother  of  Ruskin  was  rigidly  evangelical.  Both 
father  and  son  acquiesced  in  the  evangelicalism  rather  than 
shared  it.  Speaking  of  his  father  Ruskin  says :  "  Though 
he  went  to  church  with  a  resigned  countenance,  I  knew 
very  well  that  he  liked  going  just  as  little  as  I  did."  His 
mother  meant  her  boy  to  be  an  evangelical  clergyman,  but 


202  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

this  plan  was  frustrated  by  the  stern  Sabbatarianism  of  an 
aunt,  his  father's  sister,  who  gave  him  cold  mutton  for 
Sunday's  dinner,  "  which — as  I  much  preferred  it  hot — 
greatly  diminished  the  influence  of  The  Pilgrim's  Progress'' 
His  mother  was  almost  as  uncompromising  as  his  aunt 
about  the  keeping  of  Sunday,  and  when  the  father  and  son 
on  their  foreign  tours  indulged  in  walks  on  Sunday,  they  did 
so  "  with  unholy  joy,  dashed  with  a  sense  that  they  were 
children  of  perdition."  It  was  not  until  he  was  verging  on 
forty  that  Ruskin  went  so  far  as  to  draw  on  Sunday,  "  with 
a  dimly  alarmed  sense  of  its  being  a  new  fact  in  existence" 
for  him.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  owed  much  to  his 
mother  for  the  unceasing  care  with  which  she  taught  him 
to  know  his  Bible.  The  mother  and  son  began  with  the 
opening  of  Genesis  and  read  steadily  through,  day  by 
day,  omitting  nothing,  till  they  reached  the  end  of  the 
Apocalypse ;  when  they  began  over  again.  The  result 
was  that,  from  this  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures, 
Ruskin  acquired  a  backbone  to  his  thought  and  style, 
which  otherwise  might  have  been  deficient  in  force. 

As  has  already  been  said,  his  mother  expected  him  to 
become  a  minister;  and  his  father  looked  to  see  him  a  poet, 
like  Byron,  only  pious,  and  a  preacher,  like  Bossuet,  only 
Protestant.  The  parents'  forecast  of  the  destiny  of  their 
gifted  child  was  not  far  astray ;  for  his  work  was  to  preach 
in  poetic  prose,  though  not  from  the  pulpit.  As  critic 
of  painting  and  architecture  it  was  his  mission  to  preach 
the  religion  of  beauty,  and  then  later,  as  a  socialist  and 
reformer,  the  religion  of  humanity.  He  was  a  preacher  from 
his  cradle.  There  was  always  in  him  the  habit  of  mind 
which  finds  in  nature  a  text  for  sermons.  "  Mountains,"  he 
says,  "mould  character  and  implant  religion  ;  and  indeed 
this  is  true  of  nature  in  all  her  forms.  Supposing  all 
circumstances  otherwise  the  same  with  respect  to  two 
individuals,  the  one  who  loves  nature  most  will  be  always 


THE   CRITICISM   OF   ART  203 

found  to  have  more  faith  in  God  than  the  other."  But  it 
is  necessary  here  to  point  out  that  consistency  is  a  virtue 
for  which  we  must  not  look  in  Ruskin.  Elsewhere  he  tells 
us,  in  direct  opposition,  that  "  the  intense  love  of  nature  is, 
in  modern  times,  characteristic  of  persons  not  of  the  first 
order  of  intellect,  but  of  brilliant  imagination,  quick  sym- 
pathy, and  undefined  religious  principle,  suffering  also 
under  strong  and  ill  governed  passions."  A  profound 
sense  of  the  importance  of  truth  to  nature  lies  however  at 
the  heart  of  all  his  criticisms  in  art  and  literature.  "  The 
more  I  think  of  it,"  he  says,  "  I  find  the  conclusion  more 
impressed  upon  me, — that  the  greatest  thing  a  human  soul 
ever  does  is  to  see  something,  and  tell  what  it  saw  in  a 
plain  way.  Hundreds  of  people  can  talk  for  one  who  can 
think,  but  thousands  of  people  can  think  for  one  who  can 
see.  To  see  clearly  is  poetry,  prophecy,  and  religion, — all 
in  one." 

It  was  this  impulse  to  teach  people  to  see  which  drove 
him  to  write  Modern  Painters.  The  first  volume  came  out 
when  he  was  twenty-four.  He  had  taken  his  degree,  "a 
complimentary  double  fourth,"  the  year  before,  and  had 
gained  the  Newdigate  prize  for  his  poem  Salsette  and 
Elephanta.  But  Modern  Painters  was  his  first  important 
work.  The  fresh  vigorous  criticisms  of  this  unknown 
"  Graduate  of  Oxford  University  "  and  the  beauty  of  the 
style  in  which  they  were  expressed  showed  him  to  be  an 
artist  in  words  if  not  with  the  pencil.  He  had  been  stirred 
to  write  as  he  did  by  the  manifest  inability  of  England  to 
appreciate  his  favourite  painter  Turner.  He  had  gathered 
his  ideas  from  the  collection  of  Turner's  drawings  in  the 
possession  of  a  fellow-enthusiast,  a  certain  Godfrey  Windus, 
a  retired  coach-builder  living  at  Tottenham.  Of  him 
Ruskin  writes :  "  Nobody  in  all  England,  at  that  time, — 
and  Turner  was  already  sixty, — cared,  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word,  for  Turner,  but  the  retired  coach-maker  of 
Tottenham,  and  I." 


204  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

The  success  of  the  first  volume  of  Modern  Painters 
settled  the  course  of  Ruskin's  life.  His  mother  saw  that 
her  dream  of  a  son  in  the  church  must  be  given  up,  and 
his  father  sadly  laid  aside  his  hope  of  having  a  son  who 
would  write  a  Childe  Harold  fit  for  the  Sunday  school. 
They  listened  with  tears  to  the  reading  of  Modern  Painters, 
but  the  new  life  it  had  opened  up  to  their  son  never  wholly 
satisfied  their  ambition  for  him.  Their  generosity  did  not 
cease  because  of  their  disappointment.  The  education  of 
Ruskin  by  foreign  travel  and  the  study  of  art  went  on. 
In  1844  he  was  in  Switzerland,  the  following  year  in  Italy, 
a  year  later  again  in  Switzerland.  And  it  was  in  that 
last  year  that  the  second  volume  of  Modern  Painters 
appeared.  Ten  years  passed  before  the  next  two  volumes 
came,  and  not  until  1860  was  the  fifth  and  last  volume 
given  to  the  world.  It  was  no  wonder  that  the  elder 
Ruskin  felt  that  he  might  be  dead  before  the  work  was 
ended. 

It  was  neither  idleness  nor  lack  of  material  which  caused 
this  delay.  The  material  at  the  author's  command  was 
immense :  Modern  Painters  itself  is  a  substantial  work  for 
seventeen  years  of  labour.  But  in  addition  to  it  Ruskin 
had  written  The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture  and  The 
Stones  of  Venice,  to  say  nothing  of  various  other  works  of 
less  importance. 

The  publication  of  the  last  volume  of  Modern  Painters 
marks  the  disappearance  of  Ruskin  the  art  critic,  and  the 
emergence  of  Ruskin  the  social  reformer.  Important  as 
is  the  change,  it  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  it  indicates  any 
inconsistency,  or  discloses  a  break  in  his  life.  It  is  only  a 
development.  Already  in  his  books  upon  art  it  is  possible 
to  detect  the  principles  which  he  afterwards  expressed  more 
explicitly  and  insisted  upon  more  strenuously  in  those 
which  he  devoted  to  economic  and  to  social  questions. 
There  is  a  passage  in  The  Seven  Lamps  which  shows  this. 


THE   CRITICISM    OF   ART  205 

Speaking  of  the  construction  of  the  railways,  he  complains 
that  we  have  paid  immense  sums  to  men  for  digging 
ground  from  one  place  and  depositing  it  in  another.  We 
have  formed  a  class  of  men  especially  reckless,  unmanage- 
able and  dangerous.  We  have  fostered  unwholesome 
trades.  In  short,  we  have  forgotten  welfare  in  the  pursuit 
of  something  miscalled  wealth.  Now  these  principles  are, 
in  essence,  just  the  principles  which  Ruskin  reiterates  in  all 
his  economic  works,  from  Unto  this  Last  and  Munera  Pul- 
veris  to  Fors  Clavigera. 

The  first  named  of  these  three  works,  which  Ruskin 
always  held  to  contain  his  finest  writing,  appeared  in  the 
form  of  essays  in  The  Cornhill  Magazine,  then  edited 
by  Thackeray.  The  ideas  were  so  unpopular  that  the 
editor  had  to  stop  the  series  after  printing  four  papers. 
This  adverse  criticism  made  the  author  keen  for  battle. 
"  After  turning  the  matter  hither  and  thither  in  my  mind 
for  two  years  or  more,"  he  says,  "  I  resolved  to  make  it  the 
central  work  of  my  life  to  write  an  exhaustive  treatise  on 
Political  Economy."  Froude,  who  was  then  editor  of 
Fraser's  Magazine,  determined,  in  spite  of  the  experience 
of  Thackeray,  to  risk  publishing  Ruskin's  new  work.  So 
the  preface  to  it  was  printed  in  four  essays  in  the  years 
1862  and  1863.  Then  the  same  thing  happened  again — 
the  public  remonstrated,  and  the  articles  had  to  cease. 
They  were  collected  and  published  under  the  title  of  Munera 
Pulveris,  the  name  selected  for  the  larger  work  which  was 
never  written.  The  Crown  of  Wild  Olive,  Time  and  Tide 
and  the  series  of  letters  known  as  Fors  Clavigera  all  belong 
to  this  economic  period,  and  Sesame  and  Lilies  manifests  a 
kindred  spirit. 

In  1869  Ruskin  was  chosen  to  hold  the  chair  of  Slade 
professor  of  art  at  Oxford.  So  great  a  crowd  gathered 
to  hear  him  that  the  room  in  the  museum  which  had  been 
assigned  to  him  could  not  contain  it,  and  he  had  to  move 


206  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

to  the  Sheldonian  Theatre.  Many  of  his  later  works  were 
the  direct  or  indirect  outcome  of  this  professorship.  A  ratra 
Pentelici,  lectures  on  sculpture,  The  Eagle's  Nest,  on  the 
relation  between  art  and  science,  Ariadne  Florentina,  on 
engraving  on  wood  and  metal,  and  Val  (TArno,  on  the 
art  of  Tuscany,  are  among  the  number.  The  somewhat 
eccentric  enterprise  of  making  a  road  at  Hincksey  by  the 
labour  of  his  pupils  amused  the  world.  It  was  a  very  bad 
road,  but  it  indicates  that  Ruskin  the  economist  and  social 
reformer  still  survived  in  Ruskin  the  professor  of  art. 

Ruskin  had  plenty  of  absurdities  and  whimsicalities  and 
inconsistencies  ;  but  in  spite  of  them  all  his  permanent 
value  is  very  great.  He  discovered  Turner,  and  it  was 
through  him  that  England  learned  to  understand  the 
Venetians.  He  says  with  truth  that  "  Tintoret  was 
virtually  unseen,  Veronese  unfelt,  Carpaccio  not  so  much 
as  named,  when  I  began  to  study  them."  He  opened  our 
eyes  to  the  hideousness  of  the  great  industrial  and  mining 
regions  of  England;  he  showed  us  the  sordid  ugliness  of 
the  modern  scramble  for  wealth,  and  pointed  out  how 
false  and  mistaken  is  the  modern  conception  of  what  really 
constitutes  it. 

Ruskin  outlived  his  intellect  by  many  sad  years,  and 
the  end  came  slowly  in  a  quiet  home  amid  the  Cumberland 
mountains.  He  divides  men's  lives  into  three  great 
periods — u  the  days  of  youth,  of  labour,  and  of  death. 
Youth  is  properly  the  forming  time — that  in  which  a  man 
makes  himself,  or  is  made,  what  he  is  for  ever  to  be.  Then 
comes  the  time  of  labour,  when,  having  become  the  best  he 
can  be,  he  does  the  best  he  can  do.  Then  the  time  of 
death,  which,  in  happy  lives,  is  very  short :  but  always  a 
time."  This  happiness  was  not  his.  In  his  case  the 
"  time  of  death  "  extended  over  a  greater  period  than  even 
the  seven  years  he  assigned  to  it  in  the  case  of  Scott. 

During  the  lifetime  of  Ruskin,  but  quite  independently 


THE   CRITICISM    OF   ART  207 

of  him,  the  P re- Raphael! tes  were  working  on  lines  parallel 
to  his.  Thus  it  would  be  untrue  to  say  that,  had  he  never 
lived,  his  work  would  have  been  left  entirely  undone. 
These  reforming  brethren  set  out  to  extol  and  explain  the 
beauties  of  mediaeval  art,  and  also,  like  Ruskin,  to  do  battle 
with  the  false  ideals  of  beauty  and  worth  vyhich  had  crept 
into  English  life.  The  Germ  was  their  magazine,  and  in  it 
we  find  the  beautifully-written  allegorical  story  of  Dante 
Rossetti  called  Hand  and  Soul,  in  which  may  be  found  the 
whole  essence  of  the  teaching  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites  in  art 
and  in  poetry.  Rossetti  holds  that  the  artist's  business  is 
to  obey  the  rules  he  finds  written  in  his  own  heart.  These 
alone  are  binding  on  him.  In  this  sense  only  was  Pre- 
Raphaelitism  a  return  to  nature,  for  the  Pre-Raphaelites 
were  not  greatly  interested  in  external  nature. 

Akin  to  this  school  was  Walter  Pater  (1839 — 1894), 
whose  greatest  work,  Marius  the  Epicurean^  though  a  short 
book,  was  the  outcome  of  six  years  of  concentrated  labour. 
Such  laboriousness  was  characteristic  of  Pater,  and  it  has 
left  its  mark  on  his  fine  but  frequently  over-wrought  style. 
It  was  his  settled  conviction  (wherein  he  agreed  with 
Arnold)  that  the  special  characteristic  of  the  age  was  the 
unmanageable  complexity  of  its  interests.  Hardly  any 
powers,  he  thought,  were  great  enough  to  deal  with  them, 
and  in  consequence  he  was  himself  diffident  and  backward 
in  publication.  His  own  works,  which  are  remarkable  for 
variety  of  subject,  seem  to  reflect  this  complexity.  But 
at  the  core  we  always  find  Pater  himself.  He  never  can 
get  outside  himself,  and  even  the  poets  and  artists  whom 
he  criticises  have  to  take  his  colour.  Hence  he  is  most 
successful  in  dealing  with  men  of  an  introspective  nature, 
like  himself.  He  is  far  less  satisfactory  in  his  handling  of 
men  like  Shakespeare,  whose  genius  is  equally  at  home 
with  the  outer  world  and  with  the  inner.  In  the  case  of 
Pater  therefore  large  allowance  must  be  made  for  the 


208  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

"  personal  equation,"  so  that  his  criticisms  are  apt  to  com- 
mend themselves  rather  to  a  group  of  admirers  than  to  the 
world  at  large.  He  loved  to  call  them  "  appreciations," 
and  the  word  is  aptly  chosen  ;  they  are  appreciations 
rather  than  judgments. 


§  I.     The  Biographers. 

John  Gibson  Lockhart,  1794 — 1854. 

Life  of  Burns,  1828. 

Life  of  Scott,  1836—1838. 
Arthur  Penrhyn  Stanley,  1815—1881. 

Life  of  Thomas  Arnold,  1844. 
George  Henry  Lewes,  1817—1878. 

Life  of  Goethe,  1855. 
John  Forster,  1812 — 1876. 

Life  and  Adventures  of  Oliver  Goldsmith,   1848 

Sir  John  Eliot,  1864. 

Life  of  Landor,  1869. 

Life  of  Dickens,  1872 — 1874. 

Life  of  Swift,  1876. 
David  Masson,  1822—1907. 

Life  of  Milton,  1 8 5 9—  1 880. 
Samuel  Smiles,  1812—1904. 

Memoir  of  John  Murray,  1891. 
Margaret  Oliphant,  1828—1897. 

Life  of  Edward  Irving,  1862. 

Memoirs  of  Laurence  Oliphant,  1891. 

William  Blackwood  and  his  Sons,  1897. 

§  2.     The  Edinburgh  Critics. 

Francis  Jeffrey,  1773—1850. 
John  Wilson,  1785—1854. 

Noctes  Ambrosianae,  1822 — 1833. 

The  Recreations  of  Christopher  North,   1843. 

§  3.     Leigh  Hunt  and  De  Quincey. 

Leigh  Hunt,  1784—1859. 

Imagination  and  Fancy,  1844. 


BIOGRAPHY   AND   CRITICISM  209 

Wit  and  Humour,  1846. 
Men,  Women  and  Books,  1847. 
A  utobiography,  1850. 
Thomas  de  Quincey,  1785 — 1859. 

Confessions  of  an  English  Opium  Eater,  1822. 
Autobiographic  Sketches,  1853. 

§  4.     Matthew  Arnold. 

Matthew  Arnold,  1822—1888. 

On  Translating  Homer,  1861. 

Essays  in  Criticism,  1865,  1888. 

The  Study  of  Celtic  Literature,   1867. 

Culture  and  Anarchy,  1869. 

St  Paul  and  Protestantism,  1870. 

Friendship's  Garland,  1871. 

Literature  and  Dogma,  1873. 

God  and  the  Bible,   1875. 

Mixed  Essays,  1879. 

Irish  Essays,  1882. 

Discourses  in  America,  1885. 

§  5.     Brown,  Stephen,  Henley. 

John  Brown,  1810 — 1882. 

Horae  Subsecivae,  1858 — 1882. 
Leslie  Stephen,  1832 — 1904. 

Hours  in  a  Library,   1874 — 1879. 

English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  1876. 

Studies  of  a  Biographer,   1 898. 

The  English  Utilitarians,  1900. 
William  Ernest  Henley,  1849 — 19°3- 

Views  and  Reviews,  1890. 

§  6.     The  Criticism  of  Art. 

John  Ruskin,  1819 — 1900. 

Modern  Painters,  1843 — 1860. 
The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,  1849. 
The  Stones  of  Venice,  1851  — 1853. 
Pre-Raphaelitism,   1851. 

Lectures  on  Architecture  and  Painting,  1854. 
w.  14 


210  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

The  Political  Economy  of  Art,  1857. 

Unto  this  Last,  (1860)— 1862. 

Munera  Pulveris,  (1862 — 1863) — 1872. 

Sesame  and  Lilies,  1865. 

The  Crown  of  Wild  Olive,  1866. 

Time  and  Tide  by  Weare  and  Tyne,  1867. 

Lectures  on  Art,  1870. 

Fors  Clavigera,   1871 — 1884. 

Praeterita,  1885—1889. 
Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  1828—1882. 

Hand  and  Soul,  1850. 
Walter  Pater,  1839—1894. 

Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Renaissance,   1873. 

Marius  the  Epicurean,  1885. 

Imaginary  Portraits,   1887. 

Appreciations,  \  889. 

Plato  and  Platonism,  1893 

Gaston  de  Latour^  1896. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  FRAGMENTS  THAT  REMAIN 

§  I.     Landor  and  Minor   Writers 

WALTER  SAVAGE  LANDOR  (1775—1864)  claims  the 
first  place  among  the  miscellaneous  writers  who  remain  to 
be  treated.  Though  he  was  a  man  of  rare  distinction,  he 
was  strangely  incapable  of  self-control.  The  first  memorable 
incident  in  his  history  was  the  outcome  of  an  ungovernable 
temper :  he  was  sent  down  from  Oxford  for  an  act  of  vio- 
lence; and  again  near  the  end  of  his  long  life  he  had  to  leave 
England  in  consequence  of  an  action  for  libel  which  he  had 
provoked.  He  married  in  haste  and  repented  his  impulsive 
action  in  a  leisure  of  fifty  years.  He  was  full  of  contra- 
dictions— a  republican  yet  a  haughty  aristocrat,  a  cultured 
gentleman  and  a  master  of  English  style  who  dropped  his 
h's,  full  of  love  and  tenderness  yet  of  ungovernable  violence, 
a  classical  scholar  who  carried  with  him  the  freakishness  of 
the  romantic  school.  In  literature  Landor  stands  alone. 
His  long  life  stretches  like  an  arch  almost  across  a  cen- 
tury. Carlyle,  Macaulay,  Thackeray,  Dickens,  the  Brontes, 
George  Eliot,  Browning,  Tennyson  and  Darwin  were 
all  at  some  time  his  contemporaries.  Dr  Johnson  was 
still  talking  when  he  was  born,  and  when  he  died  the 
theory  of  evolution  was  shaking  the  world  of  science.  By 
reason  of  his  eighty-nine  years  he  takes  his  place  as  a 

14—2 


212  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

writer  in  Victorian  literature,  as  well  as  in  the  literature  of 
the  revolutionary  period.  His  earliest  poetry  was  published 
before  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  his  latest  nearly 
seventy  years  after.  He  wrote  poetry  all  his  life,  but  it  is 
not  by  his  verse  that  he  will  be  remembered.  Three  years 
after  his  first  poetic  venture  he  wrote  the  poem  of  Gebir, 
which  he  sought  to  make  popular  by  translating  it  into 
Latin  verse.  He  delighted  in  his  skill  in  this  decaying  art. 
But  what  might  be  expected  of  a  man  so  eccentric,  who 
believed  he  could  attract  readers  to  an  English  poem  by 
burying  it  in  a  dead  language? 

Landor's  first  dramatic  work  was  Count  Julian,  and  his 
last  was  The  Siege  of  Ancona,  which  came  out  thirty-four 
years  later.  But  Landor  was  no  dramatist,  and,  in  his  own 
words,  his  plays  are  "  no  better  than  imaginary  conversations 
in  metre."  In  his  inability  to  vary  his  style  with  the 
character  he  is  presenting  Landor  resembles  Browning. 
They  are  also  alike  in  their  inclination  to  ignore  action, 
and  to  dwell  on  a  situation  just  before  or  just  after  the 
crisis  in  the  story. 

Landor  is  greatest  in  the  Imaginary  Conversations.  In 
these  he  dealt  with  matters  regarding  which  his  knowledge 
was  ripest  and  his  sympathies  keenest,  and  they  contain 
his  greatest  achievements  in  the  delineation  of  character. 
Long  trains  of  famous  persons  are  passed  in  review- 
Socrates,  Hannibal,  Queen  Elizabeth  and  a  score  of  others, 
some  of  ages  before  the  Christian  era,  others  contemporary 
with  the  author  himself.  Landor  is  happiest  among  the 
classical  ghosts,  where  his  mastery  of  dignified  English 
is  in  harmony  with  the  conversations  of  the  persons  he 
brings  back  to  life.  His  failures  are  most  conspicuous  in 
his  literary  criticism,  notably  in  his  later  dialogue  between 
Southey  and  Porson  on  Wordsworth.  His  earlier  view  of 
this  poet  was  so  widely  different  that  the  reader  hesitates  to 
trust  the  judgment  of  a  man  who  thus  contradicts  what  he 


LANDOR   AND   MINOR   WRITERS         213 

has  said  before.  Of  Landor  as  a  critic,  Professor  Saintsbury 
writes :  "  Of  judicial  quality  or  qualities,  he  had  not  one 
single  trace,  and,  even  putting  them  out  of  the  question, 
his  intelligence  was  streaked  and  flawed  by  strange  veins 
of  positive  silliness."  Though  this  judgment  requires 
qualification,  and  receives  it  from  Professor  Saintsbury,  it  is 
true  that  Landor  was  an  unsafe  critic.  The  lawlessness  of 
his  character  exhibits  itself  in  his  condemnations  as  well  as 
in  his  panegyrics,  but  never  in  his  style.  His  words  are 
chosen  for  their  weight  and  austerity,  and  his  instinct  for 
expression  made  him  a  master  of  language.  He  never  has 
been  and  probably  never  will  be  popular.  "  I  shall  dine 
late,  but  the  dining  room  will  be  well  lighted,  the  guests 
few  and  select,"  is  the  well-known  expression  of  his  own 
opinion  of  the  place  he  will  permanently  hold  in  English 
literature. 

Mary  Russell  Mitford  (1786— 1855)  is  another  link  with 
the  past.  We  remember  her  as  the  little  girl  who  chose  a 
certain  number  at  a  lottery  office,  and  in  spite  of  difficulties 
insisted  on  having  that  number  and  no  other.  She  won 
the  prize,  a  fortune,  which  speedily  slipped  through  her 
father's  fingers.  She  wrote  tragedies,  but  she  will  live  in 
literature  as  the  author  of  Our  Village.  Miss  Mitford  in 
this  book,  Mrs  Gaskell  in  Cranford,  and  in  America 
Miss  Wilkins  in  A  Humble  Romance  and  A  Far- Away 
Melody,  have  given  us  pictures  of  rural  life  which  stand 
supreme  in  English  literature  for  quiet  beauty  enlivened 
by  quaint  humour.  There  are  no  serious  situations,  just 
friendly  parties,  simple  love-making,  and  commonplace 
interests.  Perhaps  the  sweetest  of  the  pictures  of  Our 
Village  is  that  of  the  old  maid,  her  face  and  body  grown 
grey  and  aged  but  her  heart  still  fresh  as  in  her  twenties. 
She  finds  herself  in  the  company  of  the  lover  of  those  long- 
gone  twenties,  and  "  holds  her  head,"  as  Miss  Mitford  says, 
"  on  one  side  with  that  peculiar  air  which  I  have  noted  in 


214  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

the  shyer  birds,  and  ladies  in  love."     The  whole  is  filled 
with  humour  and  pathos  admirably  blended. 

Though  they  were  younger  than  Miss  Mitford,  the  two 
brothers  Hare,  Julius  (1795 — 1855)  and  Augustus  (1792— 
1834),  are,  like  her,  among  those  who  help  to  link  the 
Victorian  era  with  the  eighteenth  century.  They  were 
joint  authors  of  Guesses  at  Truth,  short  essays  on  all  sorts 
of  serious  subjects,  written  in  a  diffuse  manner  and  ex- 
pressing pleasantly  the  thoughts  that  were  in  the  air  at  the 
time.  They  are  now  in  the  back  row  of  the  bookshelf, 
and  the  fame  of  the  authors  rests  mainly  on  the  friendship 
of  the  younger  brother  with  Sterling  and  Thirlwall,  and 
on  the  notice  taken  by  Carlyle  of  his  Life  of  Sterling. 
Another  somewhat  commonplace  writer  was  Sir  Arthur 
Helps  (1813 — 1875).  Yet  Ruskin  mentions  him  with 
Wordsworth  and  Carlyle  as  one  of  the  three  moderns  to 
whom  he  owes  most.  Helps's  Friends  in  Council  and 
Companions  of  my  Solitude  are  collections  of  essays  and 
dialogues  whose  merit  is  common  sense  and  whose  vice  is 
the  commonplace.  William  Rathbone  Greg  (1809 — 1881) 
was  a  man  of  much  superior  gifts,  yet  he  never  achieved 
the  popularity  of  Helps.  He  was  one  of  the  Unitarians 
of  Lancashire,  a  community  from  which  have  sprung  many 
men  of  high  ability.  He  wrote  The  Creed  of  Christendom, 
but  his  best  book  is  Enigmas  of  Life,  which  went  into 
eighteen  editions  in  twenty  years.  It  deals,  like  the 
former  book,  with  problems  of  ethics  and  religion. 

In  the  chapter  upon  poets  and  poetesses  some  verses 
have  been  quoted  from  William  Brighty  Rands  which 
prove  his  title  to  a  place  beside  those  two  great  makers 
of  verse  for  children,  Lewis  Carroll  and  R.  L.  Stevenson. 
But  Rands  wrote  beautiful  and  thoughtful  prose  for  men, 
as  well  as  verse  for  children.  His  Henry  Holbeach,  Student 
in  Life  and  Philosophy  is  a  most  remarkable  book.  No- 
where, not  even  in  the  masterly  work  of  George  Eliot, 


BOOKS  UPON  TRAVEL  AND  GEOGRAPHY  215 

is  there  a  descriptive  picture  which  can  surpass  that  of 
the  minister  of  the  Little  Meeting — "  a  shoemaker,  self- 
taught  ;  his  heart  amply  supplied  with  the  milk  of  human 
kindness,  and  his  creed  blazing  with  damnation."  Yet 
the  world  hardly  knew  the  name  of  the  man  to  whom  it 
owed  such  literary  gems.  Rands  worked  under  the  pseu- 
donyms of  Matthew  Browne  and  Henry  Holbeach,  and  few 
have  thought  it  worth  their  while  to  ask  who  the  unknown 
writer  was. 


§  2.     Travel  and  Geography 

The  nineteenth  century  ranks  so  late  among  the  ages 
that  it  might  be  thought  there  was  little  room  in  it  for  a 
literature  of  travel.  But  although  four  centuries  had  passed 
since  the  discovery  of  America,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  the  far  East,  the  centre  of  Australia  and 
the  heart  of  Africa  were  practically  unknown  to  men.  Polar 
exploration  was  just  beginning,  and  it  was  the  mysterious 
ending  to  the  arctic  voyage  of  Sir  John  Franklin  which 
occasioned  the  expedition  of  Sir  F.  L.  McClintock.  In  his 
Voyage  of  the  Fox  he  narrates  the  history  of  his  discovery  of 
Franklin's  tragic  fate.  An  interest  in  the  ancient  history 
of  Egypt  was  awakened  in  many  by  A  Thousand  Miles  up 
the  Nile,  by  Amelia  B.  Edwards  (1831 — 1892).  The  rise 
and  fall  of  the  African  Nile  and  the  action  of  its  waters 
upon  the  crops  produced  on  its  banks  had  from  the  time 
of  Herodotus  given  the  river  a  fascination  for  travellers. 
Where  did  the  great  stream  spring  from,  and  what  was 
the  cause  of  its  fluctuations?  David  Livingstone  (1813 — 
1873),  the  famous  missionary,  was  thought  to  be  lost  in  the 
central  regions  of  Africa ;  and  this  belief  gave  the  enter- 
prising newspaper  correspondent  Henry  Morton  Stanley 
(1841  —  1 904)  the  opportunity  of  making  himself  famous  by 
finding  the  missing  traveller.  Both  threw  much  light  upon 


216  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 

the  mysteries  of  the  dark  continent.  But  it  was  John 
Hanning  Speke  (1827 — 1864),  an  intrepid  explorer  but  a 
very  bad  writer,  who  solved  the  problem  of  the  great  river. 
The  Raleigh  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  Sir  Richard 
Burton  (1821  —  1 890).  He  travelled  with  Speke,  but  the  two 
quarrelled  violently  and  parted,  and  Burton  turned  to  other 
tasks.  Though  he  had  not  the  power  to  work  with  other  men, 
he  was  a  daring  traveller,  capable  of  assuming  any  disguise 
in  order  to  secure  knowledge  at  first  hand.  His  Pilgrimage 
to  El-Medinah  and  Meccah  shows  him  to  have  possessed  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  Eastern  life  and  an  understanding 
of  Eastern  character  such  as  has  rarely  been  attained  by  a 
European. 

George  Borrow  ( 1 803 —  1 88 1 )  had  many  of  the  character- 
istics of  Burton.  Both  were  bold  fighters,  famous  linguists, 
men  of  sturdy  bodies  and  eager  restless  souls.  The  gypsy 
nature  characterised  both,  and  both  were  most  at  home 
among  the  tramp  classes  of  all  countries.  Borrow  was 
a  Protestant  enthusiast  whom  the  Bible  Society  chose  to 
travel  in  Spain,  carrying  about  their  religious  literature. 
This  work  pleased  him,  but  when  he  came  to  write  his 
report  he  forgot  that  he  was  writing  for  a  missionary 
society,  and  wrote  his  well-known  book  The  Bible  in 
Spam.  The  Bible  Society  was  probably  both  puzzled  and 
perturbed,  but  Borrow  has  left  behind  in  this  bright 
and  breezy  volume  the  best  book  ever  written  by  an 
Englishman  about  Spain.  Like  it,  Lavengro  and  The 
Romany  Rye  are  largely  autobiographical.  They  show 
that  even  in  nineteenth-century  England  a  life  as  ad- 
venturous as  the  lives  of  mediaeval  romance  could  still 
be  lived,  and  they  embody  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
wandering  groups  of  gypsies  which  is  unrivalled  since, 
except  by  Mr  Watts-Dunton's  Aylwin. 


OSCAR  WILDE  217 

§  3.     Oscar   Wilde 

We  have  reached  the  last  figure  of  our  period,  and  it  is 
the  most  mournful.  Oscar  Wilde  (1854 — 1900)  was  the 
son  of  distinguished  parents,  the  bright  boy  of  school  and 
the  brilliant  student  of  his  universities,  Dublin  and  Oxford. 
He  was  the  apostle  of  pleasure  and  artistic  beauty.  He 
says  himself  that  he  utterly  rejected  the  doctrine  of  his 
mother's  favourite  quotation,  those  lines  of  Goethe  trans- 
lated by  Carlyle  : 

"  Who  never  ate  his  bread  in  sorrow, 

Who  never  spent  the  midnight  hours 
Weeping  and  waiting  for  the  morrow, 
He  knows  you  not,  ye  heavenly  powers." 

In  early  life  Wilde  was  all  compact  of  insincerity ;  he 
posed  so  much  that  he  forgot  how  to  be  himself.  He  and 
his  disciples  paraded  all  sorts  of  follies ;  they  flaunted 
peacocks'  feathers,  wore  their  hair  long,  and  bedecked  their 
bodies  with  velvet  and  jewels.  Wilde's  talk  was  flashing,  his 
plays  Lady  Winder  mere's  Fan  and  The  Importance  of  being 
Earnest  delighted  the  theatres  with  their  smart  epigram- 
matic dialogue,  and  his  essays  astonished  people  with  their 
wit.  Then  in  1898  what  seemed  the  end  of  all  this  brilli- 
ancy came.  Wilde  was  sentenced  to  imprisonment  with 
hard  labour  for  two  years.  It  was  while  eating  this  bread 
of  sorrow  that  he  thought  his  deepest  thought  and  did  his 
best  work.  De  Profundis  gives  the  history  of  his  spirit 
during  the  terrible  time.  It  and  A  Ballad  of  Reading 
Gaol,  which  was  written  after  his  release,  overshadow  all 
his  other  work.  They  are  perhaps  unique  in  literature,  for 
no  one  else,  gifted  as  Wilde  was,  ever  had  such  an  ex- 
perience to  describe.  Such  was  the  brilliant  but  tragic 
figure  with  which  the  Victorian  era  closed. 


218  VICTORIAN    LITERATURE 


§  i.     Landor  and  Minor  Writers. 

Walter  Savage  Landor,  1775—1864. 

Gebir,  1798. 

Count  Julian,  1812. 

Imaginary  Conversations,  1824 — 1853. 

Pericles  and  Aspasia,   1836. 

The  Pentameron,  1837. 

Andrea   of  Hungary,    Giovanna   of  Naples,  and  Fra  Rupert 
A  Trilogy,  1839—1841. 

The  Siege  of  Ancona,  1846. 

Hellenics,  1847. 

The  Last  Fruit  off  an  Old  Tree,   1853. 

Heroic  Idyls,  1863. 
Mary  Russell  Mitford,  1786—1855. 

Our  Village,  1824 — 1832. 

Recollections  of  a  Literary  Life,   1852. 
Julius  Hare,  1795—1855. 

Guesses  at  Truth  (with  Augustus  Hare,  1792 — 1834),  1827. 
Arthur  Helps,  1813—1875. 

Friends  in  Council,  1847 — 1859. 

Companions  of  My  Solitude,   1851. 
William  Rathbone  Greg,  1809 — 1881. 

The  Creed  of  Christendom,  1851. 

Enigmas  of  Life,  1872. 
William  Brighty  Rands,  1823—1882. 

Henry  Holbeach,  Student  in  Life  and  Philosophy,   1865. 

Verses  and  Opinions,  1866. 

Chaucer* s  England,  1869. 


§  2.      Travel  and  Geography. 

F.  L.  McClintock,  1819—1907. 

The  Voyage  of  the  Fox,  1859. 
Amelia  B.  Edwards,  1831—1892. 

A   Thousand  Miles  up  the  Nile,   1877. 


FRAGMENTS   THAT    REMAIN  219 

David  Livingstone,  1813 — 1873. 

Missionary  Travels  in  South  Africa,  1857. 
Henry  Morton  Stanley,  1841 — 1904. 

How  I  found  Livingstone,  1872. 

Through  the  Dark  Continent,  1878. 

In  Darkest  Africa,  1890. 
John  H.  Speke,  1827—1864. 

Journal  of  the  Discovery  of  the  Source  of  the  Nile,  1863. 
Richard  Burton,  1821 — 1890. 

A  Pilgrimage  to  El-Medinah  and  Meccah,   1855. 
George  Borrow,  1803 — 1881. 

The  Zincali,  1841. 

The  Bible  in  Spain,  1843. 

Lavengro,  1851. 

The  Romany  Rye,  1857. 

Wild  Wales,  1862. 


§  3.     Oscar  Wilde. 

Oscar  Wilde,  1854 — 1900. 
Poems,  1 88 1. 
Intentions,  1891. 
Lady  Windermere 's  Fan,  1892. 
A  Woman  of  no  Importance,  1 893. 
The  Importance  of  being  Earnest,   1895. 
A  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,   1898. 
De  Profundis,  1905. 


INDEX 


Acton,  Lord,  177,  182 

Ainsworth,  Harrison,  in 

Alison,  Sir  Archibald,  183 

Alton  Locke,  139 

Amos  Barton,  132 

Angel  in  the  House,   The,  83 

Annals  of  the  Parish,   in 

Apologia  pro   Vita  Sua,   14 

Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,  97 

Arnold,  Matthew,  67,  73  f.;  his  poetry, 
76  ff. ;  on  Emily  Bronte,  129; 
critical  work,  195  ff.  ;  on  French 
Literature,  197  ;  on  disinterested- 
ness, 197 

Arnold,  Thomas,  16,  140;  his  History, 
163;  Life  of,  190 

Arthurian  romances,  54 

Atalanta  in  Calydon,  88 

Austen,  Miss,  126 

Aytoun,  W.  E.,  68,  70,  84 

Bagehot,  Walter,  28 

Bailey,  P.  J.,  70 

Balder,  84 

Balder  Dead,   77 

Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,  A,  138,  217 

Balladists,  The,  67 

Banin,  John,  112 

Barrett,  E.,  see  Browning,  E.  B. 

Becket,  57  f. 

Beddoes,  T.  L.,  45,  48 

Bentham,  Jeremy,   19 

Besant,  Walter,  145 

Bible  in  Spain,  The,  216 

Black,  William,   145 

Blackmore,  Richard,   145 

Blackwood,    William,  and  his  Sons, 

191,  192 
Blackwood's    Magazine,     113;     and 

Wilson,  193  ;   and  Lockhart,  194 
Bon  Gaultier  Ballads,  The,  68 
Book  of  Orm,  The,  94 
Borrow,  George,   n,  216 
Boswell,  James,   188  f. 
Bradlaugh,  Charles,  95 
British  Association,  The,  35 


Bronte,  Charlotte,  and  Thackeray, 
125,  126  ff. ;  Jane  Eyre,  128  ;  Life 
of,  129;  134 

Bronte,  Emily,  72,  I26f. ;  Wuthering 
Heights,  129;  M.  Arnold  on,  129 

Bronte,  Patrick,   127 

Brown,  Dr  John,  23,  199 

Browning,  E.  B.,  42,  60,  72  f.,  96 

Browning,  Robert,  43,  58  ff.  ;  Para- 
celsus, 60 f.;  and  E.  Barrett,  60; 
Ruskin  on,  59,  62  ;  The  Ring  and 
the  Book,  64  ff. ;  Asolando,  67;  72 

Buchanan,  Robert,  80 f.,  93  f. 

Buckle,  H.  T.,  26 

Bulwer,  E.  ~L.,'see  Lytton,  E.  Bulwer 

Burne  Jones,  E.,  80,  85,   135 

Burne  Jones,  Lady,  on  Swinburne, 
88 

Burns,  4,  8,  69 

Burns,  Life  of,  188 

Burton,  Sir  Richard,  216 

Butler,  Samuel,  146 

Byron,  47,  49,  90,  191,  202 

Caird,  Edward,  24 

Campbell  Eraser,   Professor,    18 

Carleton,  W.,   ii2f. 

Carlyle,  Jane  Welsh,  31".,  iof.,  78; 
and  the  Leigh  Hunts,  195 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  i  ff. ;  and  Germany, 
2  ;  his  life,  2  ff. ;  Sartor  Resartus, 
5  f.  ;  French  Revolution,  6  f.  ; 
Cromwell,  8 ;  Past  and  Present,  8  ; 
Life  of  Sterling,  8  f. ;  Frederick  the 
Great,  9  ;  on  "  Might,"  9  ;  23,  41, 
42,  49,  69,  73,  78,  87,  139 

Carlyle,  Life  of,  171 

Carroll,  Lewis,  see  Dodgson,  C.  L. 

Catholic  Reaction,  The,  n,  13 

Chambers,  Robert,  30 

Charles  O'Malley,   114 

Chaucer,  87 

Child* s  Garden  of  Verses,   149 

Christie  Johnstone,  137 

Christmas  Eve  and  Easter  Day,  63 

City  of  Dream,   The,  93 


INDEX 


221 


City  of  Dreadful  Night,   The,  95 

City  Poems,  84 

Clare,  John,  40  f. 

Cloister  and  the  Hearth,   The,    136, 

139 

Clough,  A.  H.,  73  if. 
Clytemnestra,  97 
Coleridge,  Hartley,  44 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  i,  23,  40,  44,  72 
Comte,  22 

Congreve,  Richard,  22 
Coningsby,  118 
Constitutional  History  of  England, 

The,  175 

Cooper,  Thomas,  70 
Corn-law  Rhymes,  41 
Craik,   Dinah  M.,   135 
Cranford,    1 30 

Creighton,  Mandell,   169,  176  f. 
Crimea,  Invasion  of  the,  184 
Critical     and     Historical     Essays, 

Macaulay's,   168 
Croker,  Crofton,  113 
Crotchet  Castle,  no 
Culture  and  Anarchy,  198 

Daniel  Deronda,  132 

Darley,  George,  71 

Darwin,     Charles,    21,    26,    30  ff.  ; 

Origin  of  Species,  34  ;  and  Huxley, 

34  f- 

David  Copperfield,   121 
De  Profundis,  217 
De  Quincey,  i,  43;  and  Black-wood, 

195 
De  Tabley,  J.  B.  L.  Warren,  Lord, 

91  f. 
Decline    and   Fall    of    the    Roman 

Empire,   The,   159 
Defence  of  Guenevere,   The,  86 
Democracy  and  Liberty,   182 
Denis  Duval,   126 
Descent  of  Man,  The,  34 
Diana  of  the  Crossways,  142 
Dickens,  Charles,  42,  95,  ii9ff. ;  his 

public  readings,  120;  The  Pickwick 

Papers,  120;   his  education,    121; 

his  pathos,   122 
Dipsychus,  75 
Disraeli,  B.,  1171". 
Dobell,  Sydney,  73 f.,  83 
Dodgson,  C.  L.,  150 
Dramatic  Studies,  96 
Dramatis  Personae,  63  f. 
Dreamt  horp,  85 
Du  Maurier,  George,   126 


Earthly  Paradise,   The,  85 

East  Lynne,  99,  135 

Ecce  Homo,  179 

Edwards,  A.  B.,  215 

Egoist,   The,  142 

Eliot,  George,  126,  131  ff.  ;  humour 
and  sympathy,  133;  Adam  Bede, 
133  ;  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,  133  ; 
on  Meredith,  142  f. 

Elliott,  Ebenezer,  40  f. 

Empedocles  on  Etna,  76,  78 

Epic  of  Hades,   The,  92 

Erewhon,   146 

Esmond,   124 

Essays  and  Reviews,   16 

European  Morals,  History  of,   181 

Evan  Harrington,   143 

Ewing,  Juliana  Horatia,   151 

Expansion  of  England,   The,  1 80 

Faber,  F.  W.,  70 

Fairy  Legends  and  Traditions  of  the 

South  of  Ireland,  113 
Felix  Holt,  132 

Female  writers,  71  ;  Guizot  on,  126 
Ferrier,  Miss,  126 
Festus,  70 
Finlay,  G.,   165 
FitzGerald,    Edward,    52,    54,  73  f., 

78  f.,  91 
Formation  of  Vegetable  Mould  through 

the  Action  of  Worms,  34 
Framley  Parsonage,   141 
Eraser's  Magazine,  5,   113,   123 
Frederick  the  Great,  5,  9 
Freeman,  E.  A.,   164,   169,   172  ff. 
Friendship's  Garland,   198 
Froude,     J.     A.,      3,     14,     169  ff. ; 

Nemesis    of    Faith,     The,     170; 

History  of  England,  1 70  ;    Life  of 

Carlyle,   171 

Gait,  John,   in,   134 
Gardiner,  S.  R.,  169,  177  f. 
Garnett,  Richard,  quoted,   165 
Gaskell,  Elizabeth  Cleghorn,  42,  126, 

129  ff.,  144 

Gatty,  Margaret,   151 
Gebir,  212 
Germ,   The,  207 
German  Literature,  i,  6,  16 
Gibbon,    159,   165 
Gissing,  George,   146 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  quoted,  46,   184 
Goethe^  2,  75 
"Grant,  James,   115 


222 


INDEX 


Green,  J.  R.,   169,   176,   178 

Greg,  W.   R.,  214 

Griffin,   Gerald,   112 

Grote,  George,   163 

Growth  of  British  Policy,    The,   180 

Cry II  Grange,   no 

Guesses  at   Truth,  214 

Guest,  Lady  €.,55 

Guizot  on  Novels,   126 

Hallam,  A.  H.,  51 

Hallam,  Henry,  166 

Hamilton,  Sir  W.,   18 

Hand  and  Soul,  207 

Hard  Cash,   138 

Hare,  Augustus,  214 

Hare,  Julius,  214 

Harry  Lorrequer,   114 

Haunted  House,    The,  43 

Hawker,  R.  S.,  70 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  75 

Heber,   Reginald,  44 

Hegel,  21 

Hegelians,  The  English,   17,  23  ff. 

Heir  of  Reddyffe,    The,   135 

Hemans,  F.   D.,  72 

Henley,  W.  E.,  96  f.,   199^ 

Hereward  the   Wake,    139 

Heroes  and  Hero- Worship,  5,  87 

Hood,  Thomas,  42  f. 

Houghton,  Lord,  see  Milnes,  R.  M. 

Hound  of  Heaven,   7'he,  98 

House  of  Life,   7'he,  8r 

Hughes,  Thomas,   140 

Hume,  David,  25,   159 

Hunt,  Leigh,   1945. 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  19,  35,  53,   159 

Hypatia,   140 

Idylls  of  the  King,    The,  54  ff. 
Idyls    and    Legends    of    Inverbum, 

93 

Imaginary  Conversations,  212 

In  Memoriam,  53 

Ingelovv,  Jean,  95 

Ingoldsby  Legends,   The,  68 

Inland  Voyage,  An,   148 

Irving,  Edward,  2  f.,   13 

//  is  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend,  138 

Jacob  Faithful,   1 1 5 
Joel,  92 

Jeffrey,  Francis,   134,   192 
Jerrold,  Douglas,  61 
John  Inglesant,    146 
Jowett,  Benjamin,   16,  24  f. 


Keats,  42,  48,   69 
Keble,  J.,   15,  44,  70 
Kemble,  J.  M.,  161 
Kidnapped,   149 
Kinglake,  A.  W.,   184 
Kingsley,  C.,  42,   139!". 
Knowles,   Sheridan,  45  f. 

Lamb,  Charles,  43,   130 

Landon,  L.  E.,   72 

Landor,   W.  S.,   211  ff. 

Lang,  Andrew,  188 

Lark  Ascending;    7'he,   100 

Last     Chronicle     of     Barset,      The, 

141 

Last  Days  oj  Pompeii,   The,   116 
Latter- Day  Pamphlets,  5,  8 
Lecky,   W.  E.   H.,   181  f. 
Legends  and  Lyrics,  95 
Lever,  Charles,   113 
Lewes,    G.    H.,    22  f.  ;    his   Life  of 

Goethe,   190 

Light  of  Asia,   The,  97 
Livingstone,  David,  215 
Lockhart,  J.  G.,    in,    188  ff. 
Locksley  Hall,  54,   57 
Lockyer,  Norman,  53 
London  Poems,  93 
Lorna  Doone,   145 
Lot  hair,   118 
Lover,  Samuel,   113 
Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  21,  30 
Lytton,   E.   Bulwer,  47  f.,   115  ff. 
Lytton,  Robert,  Lord,  97 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  67,  70,  i66ff. ;  on 

Hallam,  166 

McClintock,  Sir  F.   L.,  215 
MacDonald,  George,   144 
Macleod,  Fiona,  see  Sharp,  William 
Maginn,  William,  113 
Mahony,   Francis,   1 1 3 
Maine,  H.  S.,  27 
Mansel,  H.  L.,   19 
Mangan,  J.  C.,  71 
Margaret  M  ait  land,  134 
Marryat,  Frederick,   115 
Marston,  P.  B.,  95 
Martin,  Theodore,  68 
Martineau,  Harriet,  22  f.,  61 
Martineau,  James,  25 
Mary  Barton,    130 
Maurice,  F.   D.,   19,  51 
Meredith,      George,      98  ff.  ;       and 

Browning,    99;    his    poems,    100; 

his  novels,    141  ff. 


INDEX 


223 


Meredith,  Owen,  see  Lytton,  Robert, 

Lord 

Mill,  James,   19 
Mill,  J.  S.,  7,  ipff. ;  System  of  Logic, 

21  ;  on  Finlay,  164 
Mill  on  the  Floss,    The,  132 
Miller,  Hugh,  30 
Milman,  H.   H.,  46,   165 
Milnes,  R.  M.,Lord  Houghton,  50,69 
Milton,    54,  59,  88 ;    Masson's  Life 

of,  191 ;   197 
Mitford,  M.  R.,  46,  213 
Modern  Love,  99 
Modern  Painters,  203 
Monna  Innominata,  82 
Montgomery,  James,  44 
Morris,   Lewis,  92 
Morris,  William,  85  ff.,  92,   135 
Morte  d"1  Arthur,  55 
Miiller,  Max,   161 
Murray,  John,  5;  Memoir  of,   191 

Napier,  W.  F.  P.,  183 

Napoleon,  41,   71,    180 

National  Life  and  Character,   178 

Neale,  J.   M.,  70 

Newcomes,  The,   122 

Newman,  F.  W.,  25 

Newman,  J.  H.,   10  f.,   14  f.,  17,  25 

Noetics,  The,   15 

North  and  South,  130 

Norton,  Honble  Mrs,  72,    142 

Norton,  Professor,  79 

Obermann,  77 

Old  Curiosity  Shop,   The,   122 
Oliphant,   Margaret,   134,   191 
Omar  Khayyam,   78f. 
Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel,  The,  142 
Orestes,  91 

Origin  of  Species,   The,  21,   27,  33 
Our   Village,  213 
Owen,   Richard,  35 
Owen,  Robert,  93 
Oxford  Movement,  The,  17,  45,  73, 
82  f. 

.  Palgrave,  Francis,   161 
Papacy,  History  of  the,  177 
Paracelsus,  60,  6 1 
Past  and  Present,   8 
Pater,  Walter,   207 
Patmore,  Coventry,   83 
Peacock,  T.  L.,   109 
Pearson,  C.   H.,    178 
Pendennis,   124 


Pickwick  Papers,    The,    120 

Planche,  J.  R.,  46 

Poe,   E.  A.,  71 

Positivists,  The,   17,   22 

Praed,  W.  M.,  68  f. 

Praeterita,   201 

Pre-Raphaelites,  The,   17,  85,  207 

Prior,   Matthew,  68 

Private   Papers   of  Henry   Ryecroft, 

146 

Procter,  Adelaide,  95 
Pusey,  E.  B.,   15 

Rands,  W.  B.,   100,   214 

Rationalism  in  Europe,  The  Rise  and 
Influence  of,  181 

Reade,  Charles,  I36ff. ;  his  desire  to 
be  a  dramatist,  137  ;  The  Cloister 
and  the  Hearth,  139 

Rhoda  Fleming,   143 

Rice,  James,   145 

Ring  and  the  Book,    The,  64  ff. 

Ritchie,  Lady,  quoted,  49 

Rogers,  Samuel,  51 

Roman  Canon  Law  in  England,  183 

Roman,   The,  84 

Romance  of  War,   The,  115 

Romola,   1 36 

Rossetti,  Christina,   72  f.,  82,  96 

Rossetti,  D.  G.,  73  ff.,  79,  82,  92 

Ruskin,  John,  29,  59  ;  and  Browning, 
62,  200 ff. ;  his  parents,  201  f. ;  bib- 
lical study,  202 ;  and  Turner,  203 ; 
Slade  Professor,  205  ;  his  division 
of  life,  206 

Saintsbury,   Professor,   213 
Sartor  Resartus,   3  f. ,  6,   113 
Scottish  School  of  Philosophy,    17 
Scottish  Theology,    n 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  i,   13,  45,  67,  70, 

109,  in,  1 16,  136,  191 
Scott,  Life  of,   1 88,    190 
Seeley,  J.  R.,   1796°. 
Seven   Lamps    of  Architecture,    The 

204 

Shairp,  J.  C.,  76 
Shakespeare,  46,  55,  89,   100,    127 
Sharp,  William,   144  f. 
Shaving  of  Shagpat,   The,   142 
Shelley,  42,  69 
Sheridan,   72 
Shirley,   128 
Shorthouse,  J.   H.,   145 
Sidgwick,   Henry,  22 
Sigurd  the   Volsting,   87 


224 


INDEX 


Smith,  Alexander,   73,  84 

Sohrab  and  Rustum,  77 

Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese,  72 

Sordello,  61 

Spasmodic  School,  The,  84 

Speke,  J.  H.,  216 

Spencer,  Herbert,  21,  31,  33 

Spenser,  Edmund,  54 

Stanley,  A.  P.,   16,  76;    his  Life  of 

Arnold,   190 
Stanley,   H.  M.,  215 
Stephen,  Leslie,   199 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,   1476°.;  his  youth 

and  weakness,   147;    in  the  South 

Seas,  148  ;   love  of  Scotland,  148  ; 

Treasure  Island,  148  ;  Kidnapped, 

149 ;     St    Ives,     149 ;      Weir    of 

Hermiston,   149;    his  poetry,   149 
Stones  of  Venice,   The,  204 
Stonewall  Jackson  and  the  Civil  War, 

184 

Stubbs,  William,   169,   172,   174  f. 
Subaltern,  The,   114 
Swinburne,     A.     C.,      80,      88  ff. ; 

Browning  and  Tennyson  on,   88 ; 

H.  D.  Traill's  parody  on,  89 ;   on 

George  Eliot,   134 

Taine,  quoted,  5 

Taylor,  Sir  Henry,  quoted,  7,  20, 
47  f. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  10,  15,  42, 
49  ff. ;  at  Cambridge,  50 ;  and 
Ilallam,  51 ;  and  Emily  Sell  wood, 
51;  The  Princess,  52  ;  In 
Memoriam,  53  ;  Laureateship,  53  ; 
The  Idylls  of  the  King,  54  ff. ; 
dramatic  works,  57  f.,  73,  86;  on 
Swinburne,  88 

Tennyson,  Charles,  50 

Tennyson,  Frederick,  50 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  43,  119,  122  ff.  ; 
birth  and  education,  122  ;  domestic 
sorrow,  123;  Esmond,  124; 
Vanity  Fair,  125 

Thirlwall,  Connop,   13,  16,   163 

Thompson,  Francis,  98 


Thomson,  James,  94  f. 

Thomson's  Seasons,  40 

Through  the  Looking  Glass,  150 

Tom  Brown's  School  Days,   140 

Tractarianism,  see  Oxford  Movement 

Tractarians,  The,    15  ff. 

Traits     and    Stories    of    the    Irish 

Peasantry,   112 
Tristram  of  Lyonesse,  90 
Tupper,   Martin,  6     ^Y 
Turner,  Sharon,   161 

Utilitarians,  The,   17,   19,  21 


Vailima  Letters,   148 

Vere,  Sir  Aubrey  de,  46  f. 

Vere,  Aubrey  de,  the  younger,  92  f. 

Vers  de  Societe,  67  ff. 

Vivian  Grey,   118 
Voltaire,  4 

Wallace,  A.  R.,  and  Darwin,  34 

War  in  the  Peninsula,  History  of,  183 

Warden,   The,   140 

Water  Babies,   The,   140 

Watts,  G.  F.,  20 

Waverley  Romances,   n 

Webster,  Augusta,  72,  96 

Weir  of  Hermiston,   149 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  54,   114 

Westward  Ho  !  139 

Whately,  R.,   16 

Wilde,    Oscar,     138  ;    on    Meredith, 

143  ;  his  life,  217  ;   De  Profundis, 

217 

Williams,  Isaac,  70 
Witty  Reilly,   112 
Wilson,  John,    in,   193 
Wood,  Mrs  Henry,   135 
Woods  of  Westermaine,    The,   100 
Wordsworth,    40,  44  ff.,  46,  47,  49, 

51,  93,   192 
Wuthering  Heights,   129 

Yeast,   139 
Zanoni,   117 


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